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1. US Hotel Workers Plan Strike Authorization Votes
A total of about 13,500 unionized hotel workers in Boston; San Francisco; Honolulu; and Providence, Rhode Island, are planning strike authorization votes in the first week of August after contract talks stalled with Marriott International, Hilton and Hyatt Hotels Corp., Reuters reports.
The workers are seeking significant pay raises and better healthcare and pension plans in their new contracts.
"Frankly, we were insulted with what they came to the table with," said Carlos Aramayo, president of Unite Here Local 26 in Boston. "We are very, very far apart from an agreement."
2. Southwest Airlines Under Review for Close Calls
The Federal Aviation Administration is launching a review into Southwest Airlines after a number of potential safety incidents in recent months, the Wall Street Journal reports. The safety incidents include flights that descended to low altitudes and a flight that took off from a closed runway.
The audit is expected to be completed within the next three months, the news outlet reports. Southwest said it has already formed a team with members from the airline, its unions and the FAA to analyze its safety system.
“This group is tasked with performing an in-depth, data-driven analysis to identify any opportunities for improvement. Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of our customers and employees,” the airline said.
3. Hotel Industry Searching for Stability, Revenue Mangers Say
Hotel revenue managers say it's been a challenge balancing the business between different travel segments from market to market, HNN reports from the HSMAI Commercial Strategy Conference.
"Pre-COVID, it was almost like you could regionalize and you could create certain trends that were across portfolios and across markets, but today, we're still finding stability," said Priya Chandnani, senior vice president of sales, revenue and distribution strategy at Sage Hospitality Group. "Some markets are doing better than others with group, [business travel] has rebounded for certain markets ... so maybe it is give it a few more years before we can truly start tracking overarching trends versus getting more curated."
4. Eurozone Business Growth Stalls in July
Growth in Eurozone business has so far stalled in July, drawing some pessimism for the region for the rest of the year and beyond, Reuters reports.
Hamburg Commercial Bank's preliminary composite Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 50.1 this month from 50.9 in June. A metric that looks at the area's services sector dropped to 51.9 this month from 52.8 in June.
"The Eurozone's flash July PMIs corroborate the message sent by other leading indicators that the recovery is faltering. If leading indicators continue to underwhelm, this may result in a downgrade to our GDP growth forecasts," said Rory Fennessy, senior economist at Oxford Economics.
5. Hottest Day on Record for Second Consecutive Day
This past Sunday was the hottest day on record — until that record was broken on Monday, Reuters reports. The global average surface air temperature reached 62.87 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday, 0.11 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than Sunday's record.
The record was previously set in July 2023, when it was broken four days in a row from July 3-6. Unlike in 2023, though, the world has moved out of the El Nino climate pattern, which means climate change is the driving factor in the rising of global temperatures, said Karsten Haustein, a climate scientist at Leipzig University in Germany.
"This past Monday might have set a new global record for warmest absolute global average temperature ever — by that I mean going back tens of thousands of years," Haustein said.