Eight months on the shelf after knee surgery put a severe dent in his prize money, and killed his overseas appearance fees. One of his main sponsors walked away a year before their agreement was set to expire.
Yet Tiger Woods remains sports’ highest earner with an annual income two and a half times larger than his closest competitor. The world’s top golfer made $110 million during the past 12 months and is the best-paid sportsman for the eighth straight year.
Woods’ knee injury caused his prize money to drop to $5 million from $25 million, but his overall earnings only fell $5 million thanks to an expansion of Woods’ non-playing financial empire.
PepsiCo launched Gatorade Tiger last year in March with claims that it “helps focus your mind and your body.” Woods receives a cut of sales for the four flavors sold under his name. When General Motors’ problems caused Buick to terminate its $8 million a year deal with Woods one year early, the Woods camp moved quickly to sign a deal with AT&T to put the phone company’s brand on his golf bag in Buick’s place.
Nike is by far Woods’ biggest benefactor with an annual payday of more than $30 million for the golfer. Woods profits from the success of the company’s golf division, and last year sales for Nike Golf hit a record $725 million. Woods’ most lucrative new endeavor is his golf course design business. Last year he announced plans for a third course to be built in Mexico. His other courses in Dubai and North Carolina are currently under construction.
Our list of the highest-paid athletes looks at earnings derived from salaries, bonuses, prize money, endorsements and licensing income between June 2008 and June 2009 and does not deduct for taxes or agents’ fees. Overall, the top 20 earned $789 million, down 1 percent from last year. The cutoff to make the list was $30 million.
Drop-offs from last year include boxer Floyd Mayweather (has not fought since December 2007), NFL players Ben Roethlisberger and Dwight Freeney (both made the 2008 list after inking contracts with big signing bonuses) and Formula One driver Fernando Alonso (just missed the cut).
The highest-ranking of the four newcomers to the list is boxer Manny Pacquiao who earned $40 million over the last year, tied for the sixth most. Pacquiao cemented his claim as the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter with convincing knockouts of Oscar De La Hoya in December and Ricky Hatton in May. The two blockbuster fights garnered more than 2 million pay-per-view buys in the U.S. and earned Pac-Man $30 million combined.
Pacquiao’s massive popularity in his native Philippines is why companies like Nike and San Miguel beer have signed him to endorse their products. Pacquiao intends to use that popularity to run for political office when his ring career is over.
Our 20 highest earners have a very international flavor with Pacquiao one of eight non-Americans on the list. Finnish Formula One driver Kimi Raikkonen earned $45 million over the past year, tied for second on our list with hoop legends Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Right behind that trio is global icon David Beckham who earned $42 million playing for the Los Angeles Galaxy and AC Milan, while shilling for Adidas, Giorgio Armani and Motorola.
Notable omission: the entire NFL, which didn’t place anyone in the top 20 despite being the world’s richest sports league. The league’s salary cap keeps a lid on individual player salaries, and few players outside of Peyton Manning collect big endorsement deals. The top NFL earner during the past 12 months was Oakland Raiders cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha who made $22 million, mainly as a result of the three-year, $45 million contract he signed in February.
The top five:
1. Tiger Woods: Slideshow
2t. Kobe Bryant: Slideshow
2t. Michael Jordan: Slideshow
2t. Kimi Raikkonen: Slideshow
5. David Beckham: Slideshow
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Pilot on Continental flight dies; jet lands safely
NEWARK, N.J. – The only inkling passengers had that something was wrong on the Continental Airlines flight over the Atlantic Ocean was when an announcement came over the loudspeaker asking if there was a doctor on board.
Otherwise, flight attendants continued to serve snacks. Passengers read magazines and watched movies. And the flight kept on its schedule.
But in the cockpit, the 60-year-old captain had died of a suspected heart attack and two co-pilots took over the controls. The 247 passengers aboard did not learn what had happened until the flight from Brussels landed safely Thursday and was met by fire trucks, emergency vehicles and dozens of reporters.
"I was shocked," said Dora Dekeyser of Houston. "Nobody knew anything."
"We weren't panicking. I never thought it was something as serious as this. We were relaxed," said Dekeyser's granddaughter, Stephanie Mallis, 18, of Lansdale, Pa.
After the crew of the Boeing 777 asked if there were any doctors aboard, several passengers approached the cockpit, including a doctor who said the pilot appeared to have suffered a heart attack.
Dr. Julien Struyven, 72, a cardiologist and radiologist from Brussels, examined the pilot in the cockpit and tried to revive him using a defibrillator. But it was too late.
"He was not alive," Struyven said. There was "no chance at all" of saving him.
The dead pilot was based in Newark and had worked for Continental for 32 years, the airline said. His name was not immediately released.
Tom Donaldson, a former leader of the Continental pilots' union who currently flies Boeing 767 jets for the airline, said pilots must pass an extensive physical every six months to remain qualified to fly. The exam includes an electrocardiogram, blood pressure check and a vision test.
For long routes such as trans-Atlantic flights, a third pilot is aboard to permit the captain or first officer to take rest breaks.
Donaldson said there is no specific training on how to react if a crew member becomes incapacitated, but any one of the three pilots is fully qualified to operate the jet.
"Clearly you want another set of eyes watching when you're going down a checklist, but you're capable of flying the airplane yourself," he said. "You can put the gears down, put the flaps down and carry out your other duties by yourself in an emergency."
Air France pilot Hugues Duval, 29, said his co-pilot training included an exercise in which he had to take off and land without a captain.
"It's not a drama. If the captain is ill or incapacitated, you make sure he isn't blocking any controls or the wheel," Duval said in Le Bourget, France, where he was attending the Paris Air Show.
"After you ask for priority to land, you can also ask in the cabin if there is another pilot on board. In case you need help reading the checklist or taking the radio. I did it in a simulator," said Duval, who flies the Boeing 777 but was at the air show to do stunt flying.
On Thursday's flight, Martha Love of Greenwich, N.J., was sitting in the first row of the plane. She said passengers were not told what was going on.
"No one knew," she said. She only became concerned after the plane landed, when she saw emergency vehicles lined up along the runway.
Simon Shapiro, a passenger from the Brooklyn region of New York City, was also unaware. "I didn't hear anything or see anything," Shapiro said. "I was wondering why there were so many cops."
Passenger Kathleen Ledger, 45, of Bethlehem, Pa., said she learned about what happened when her cell phone rang after landing.
"My husband called me and told me," she said.
She was impressed with the way the flight crew handled themselves and did not think passengers needed to be informed of the death during the flight.
"They did an incredible job," she said. "I would have done the exact same thing."
In 2007, another Continental pilot died at the controls after becoming ill during a flight from Houston to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It landed safely with a co-pilot at the controls after being diverted to McAllen, Texas.
Otherwise, flight attendants continued to serve snacks. Passengers read magazines and watched movies. And the flight kept on its schedule.
But in the cockpit, the 60-year-old captain had died of a suspected heart attack and two co-pilots took over the controls. The 247 passengers aboard did not learn what had happened until the flight from Brussels landed safely Thursday and was met by fire trucks, emergency vehicles and dozens of reporters.
"I was shocked," said Dora Dekeyser of Houston. "Nobody knew anything."
"We weren't panicking. I never thought it was something as serious as this. We were relaxed," said Dekeyser's granddaughter, Stephanie Mallis, 18, of Lansdale, Pa.
After the crew of the Boeing 777 asked if there were any doctors aboard, several passengers approached the cockpit, including a doctor who said the pilot appeared to have suffered a heart attack.
Dr. Julien Struyven, 72, a cardiologist and radiologist from Brussels, examined the pilot in the cockpit and tried to revive him using a defibrillator. But it was too late.
"He was not alive," Struyven said. There was "no chance at all" of saving him.
The dead pilot was based in Newark and had worked for Continental for 32 years, the airline said. His name was not immediately released.
Tom Donaldson, a former leader of the Continental pilots' union who currently flies Boeing 767 jets for the airline, said pilots must pass an extensive physical every six months to remain qualified to fly. The exam includes an electrocardiogram, blood pressure check and a vision test.
For long routes such as trans-Atlantic flights, a third pilot is aboard to permit the captain or first officer to take rest breaks.
Donaldson said there is no specific training on how to react if a crew member becomes incapacitated, but any one of the three pilots is fully qualified to operate the jet.
"Clearly you want another set of eyes watching when you're going down a checklist, but you're capable of flying the airplane yourself," he said. "You can put the gears down, put the flaps down and carry out your other duties by yourself in an emergency."
Air France pilot Hugues Duval, 29, said his co-pilot training included an exercise in which he had to take off and land without a captain.
"It's not a drama. If the captain is ill or incapacitated, you make sure he isn't blocking any controls or the wheel," Duval said in Le Bourget, France, where he was attending the Paris Air Show.
"After you ask for priority to land, you can also ask in the cabin if there is another pilot on board. In case you need help reading the checklist or taking the radio. I did it in a simulator," said Duval, who flies the Boeing 777 but was at the air show to do stunt flying.
On Thursday's flight, Martha Love of Greenwich, N.J., was sitting in the first row of the plane. She said passengers were not told what was going on.
"No one knew," she said. She only became concerned after the plane landed, when she saw emergency vehicles lined up along the runway.
Simon Shapiro, a passenger from the Brooklyn region of New York City, was also unaware. "I didn't hear anything or see anything," Shapiro said. "I was wondering why there were so many cops."
Passenger Kathleen Ledger, 45, of Bethlehem, Pa., said she learned about what happened when her cell phone rang after landing.
"My husband called me and told me," she said.
She was impressed with the way the flight crew handled themselves and did not think passengers needed to be informed of the death during the flight.
"They did an incredible job," she said. "I would have done the exact same thing."
In 2007, another Continental pilot died at the controls after becoming ill during a flight from Houston to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It landed safely with a co-pilot at the controls after being diverted to McAllen, Texas.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Small Is Beautiful A Small Business Marketing Success Story: Pink Cake Box
Ready for something different? Typically in this space each month, I write a “How To” or “Why To” article with ideas and tips for helping small businesses succeed online. I’d like to go in a different direction: profiles of small businesses that are succeeding online. I’m a big believer that learning from the successful examples of others is often the best way to grow a small business, and hopefully you’ll agree. Today, I’ll introduce you to a small business that’s baking up a storm via its web site, a blog, public relations, and social media.
Pink Cake Box is a specialty cake shop in northern New Jersey with 10 employees. They opened for business in 2005, built their own web site, and started a blog all in that same year. They’ve been featured in People, Modern Bride, and several other publications. They are, by any definition I can think of, a successful small business. And as Jesse Heap—whose wife, Anne, is the pastry chef and cake designer—says, they owe much of their success to solid online marketing. “I don’t think we realized how critical the web would become to our business,” Jesse told me recently via e-mail. (Note: I have never met the Heaps in person, and have no business relationship with them.) Here’s our interview.
Matt McGee: How important has your web site been to growing the business?
Jesse Heap: It’s been crucial to helping build the business and driving customer growth. The majority of our customers originate through the web. Our site has also opened up doors with media contacts and helped us score a spot on CNN along with several prominent magazines and newspapers.
A lot of small businesses have trouble finding the right people to develop their web site. How did you go about it?
From a technical perspective, we took the DIY approach but decided to rely heavily on open source software like Wordpress to build and manage the site. Our goal was to create a content management system that would allow our non-technical employees to contribute to our content. Not everyone has the in-house expertise to build a strong web presence, so my advice would be to find a provider who has experience implementing open source CMS systems like Joomla, Drupal, or Wordpress.
The marketing piece requires much more dedication. I think it’s harder to find outside expertise in Internet marketing that is dedicated and truly understands your industry.
You guys also have a blog. What convinced you to start blogging?
When launching the business in 2005, we looked at our competitors and realized that, for the most part, they had built attractive web destinations. However, almost all our competitors had static sites that lacked the ability to connect with customers like a blog can. We realized that, in order to differentiate ourselves, we had to use our blog to promote our cakes and offer customers and cake enthusiasts a constant stream of new cake, contests, & videos. Our goal was to stay connected to our customers and help foster stronger brand recognition.
Our approach helped attract links from hobbyists that lead to increased search engine visibility and ultimately more customers.
The other positive aspect of blogging on the Wordpress platform is its native and extended SEO capabilities. Out of the box, Wordpress has some strong SEO capabilities and with the right combinations of plugins and tweaks, it is an SEO powerhouse.
Blogging is a real commitment. If you want to create a valuable blog, you have to invest time to keep it updated. How do you guys handle the time commitment issue?
I couldn’t agree more. This is especially an issue with small businesses—there always seems to be a more business-critical task that needs to be completed. Fortunately, our content is more visual in nature and doesn’t require the level of commitment that a more copy-centric blog requires.
Realizing this, we’ve tailored our Wordpress platform to focus more on photos. Instead of copy, our blog categories and tags display photos. Instead of displaying our most recent posts by blog title, we insert a thumbnail of the cake, cupcake, or cookie highlighted in the post.
To save time, we’ve integrated the Wordpress platform throughout our site. The goal is to drive as many pages as possible directly off of our blog content. This minimizes maintenance and allows us to concentrate on our core competency: sharing our cake artwork with the world.
Has the blog been a successful marketing tool for you?
Without a doubt, our blog is the centerpiece of our web presence and has been an extremely successful marketing tool. The blog receives upwards of 120,000 unique visitors a month and drives a large percentage of our orders.
How do you measure its success?
Measuring success is an interesting question. When we first started out, I placed a strong emphasis on building traffic. I was of the mindset, “the more traffic, the better.” And initially this worked well and helped drive orders. But we reached a saturation point where our high traffic started contributing to a deluge of e-mails and calls from “information seekers”—in other words, people not interested in placing an order, but more interested in finding out information about how to make our cakes.
We didn’t have the capacity to handle this deluge and realized that our “more traffic the better” mantra needed to be refined. We began focusing our content on products that lead to better order conversions. And rather then measuring aggregate traffic numbers, we focused our measurement on traffic from our strategic focus areas.
PCB has had a lot of press attention—magazines, newspapers, etc. Did you actively seek that, or did they find you?
Initially we had to seek out press contacts. Our initial strategy involved reaching out to media outlets via e-mail. Each e-mail included a portfolio of our products along with links back to our web site. We also found success through customer contacts that have recommended us to their media contacts. We have also worked hard to maintain relationships we’ve built with the media. This includes small things like sending holiday cards to larger partnerships to help promote complementary content on our blog.
At the end of the day, though, having a unique and strong product is the key to getting press attention.
You guys make some amazing cakes and cookies, so there’s an obvious visual element to your business. Have you done any marketing on Flickr or even YouTube?
Thanks, my wife is amazingly talented. :)
We’ve heavily leveraged Flickr as an outlet for our cakes. In fact, our Most Popular Cakes gallery is driven off the Flickr API. It displays all of our “Most Interesting” photos based on Flickr’s data. Flickr has also helped us from a media perspective. Our initial contact with CNN occurred through Flickr and we’ve developed various relationships with other bloggers through Flickr.
We’ve also created a YouTube channel but have not fully leveraged it because of the time commitment required to create videos. We have future plans to expand this.
Between the web site and the blog, and taking photos and posting them on Flickr, and all the other stuff you have going on—it sounds like a ton of work! I can imagine another small business owner thinking, “We’d never have the time to do all this.” How do you guys manage these online efforts?
I currently handle all the online efforts, but in the long run as we look to expand our online efforts, we’ll have to look to hire additional help. I agree that a sole proprietor would find it difficult from a time commitment perspective to manage an online effort themselves at the level that we do.
But as with any new business in startup mode, if you devote extra effort up-front, whether that be by investing your own time or investing money to hire someone else, you’ll see the dividends pay off in the future. It takes time to build a strong web presence, but once you gain momentum and develop a streamlined process, the site’s popularity will help sustain your business. The key assumption here is you have a strong product or service to sell.
Do you guys have time to pay much attention to the search marketing industry? Do you read Search Engine Land and other sites like that?
I read industry sites like SEL religiously. I make time to do it because I strongly believe our success is highly correlated with our reach and visibility throughout the Internet. My favorites include the typical characters: Matt Cutts, Blogstorm, SEO Book, Small Business SEM, and Sphinn.
I also pay close attention to blogs in our industry. I’ve been particularly impressed with a relatively new blog called CakeSpy.com, created by Jessie Olsen. Jessie has done a fantastic job of creating compelling content while simultaneously (and subtly) pushing her cake artwork.
What about PPC? Do you do any paid search advertising?
We haven’t explored this option yet and don’t have any plans at this time.
What’s next for PCB? Any new marketing ideas you’re excited to try?
Some of the things we are working on:
* We are working on opening an online store to sell complementary cake products
* Creating international versions of our blog to further drive international traffic
* We are also exploring opening a retail shop
For the future, we realize we need to take our blog to the next level in order to continue our successes. We’ll look to introduce more social media aspects to our blog to encourage greater user engagement. Specifically, some of the things we are thinking about include the ability for users to create their own profiles, vote for their favorite cakes, and engage in more polls and contests.
Thanks, Jesse. Keep up the great work.
As you can see, Pink Cake Box is a small business that understands the power of search and online marketing. If you are (or know of) a small business owner with a great story to tell about how you’re using the Internet to grow your business, please contact me at my blog, Small Business SEM.
Pink Cake Box is a specialty cake shop in northern New Jersey with 10 employees. They opened for business in 2005, built their own web site, and started a blog all in that same year. They’ve been featured in People, Modern Bride, and several other publications. They are, by any definition I can think of, a successful small business. And as Jesse Heap—whose wife, Anne, is the pastry chef and cake designer—says, they owe much of their success to solid online marketing. “I don’t think we realized how critical the web would become to our business,” Jesse told me recently via e-mail. (Note: I have never met the Heaps in person, and have no business relationship with them.) Here’s our interview.
Matt McGee: How important has your web site been to growing the business?
Jesse Heap: It’s been crucial to helping build the business and driving customer growth. The majority of our customers originate through the web. Our site has also opened up doors with media contacts and helped us score a spot on CNN along with several prominent magazines and newspapers.
A lot of small businesses have trouble finding the right people to develop their web site. How did you go about it?
From a technical perspective, we took the DIY approach but decided to rely heavily on open source software like Wordpress to build and manage the site. Our goal was to create a content management system that would allow our non-technical employees to contribute to our content. Not everyone has the in-house expertise to build a strong web presence, so my advice would be to find a provider who has experience implementing open source CMS systems like Joomla, Drupal, or Wordpress.
The marketing piece requires much more dedication. I think it’s harder to find outside expertise in Internet marketing that is dedicated and truly understands your industry.
You guys also have a blog. What convinced you to start blogging?
When launching the business in 2005, we looked at our competitors and realized that, for the most part, they had built attractive web destinations. However, almost all our competitors had static sites that lacked the ability to connect with customers like a blog can. We realized that, in order to differentiate ourselves, we had to use our blog to promote our cakes and offer customers and cake enthusiasts a constant stream of new cake, contests, & videos. Our goal was to stay connected to our customers and help foster stronger brand recognition.
Our approach helped attract links from hobbyists that lead to increased search engine visibility and ultimately more customers.
The other positive aspect of blogging on the Wordpress platform is its native and extended SEO capabilities. Out of the box, Wordpress has some strong SEO capabilities and with the right combinations of plugins and tweaks, it is an SEO powerhouse.
Blogging is a real commitment. If you want to create a valuable blog, you have to invest time to keep it updated. How do you guys handle the time commitment issue?
I couldn’t agree more. This is especially an issue with small businesses—there always seems to be a more business-critical task that needs to be completed. Fortunately, our content is more visual in nature and doesn’t require the level of commitment that a more copy-centric blog requires.
Realizing this, we’ve tailored our Wordpress platform to focus more on photos. Instead of copy, our blog categories and tags display photos. Instead of displaying our most recent posts by blog title, we insert a thumbnail of the cake, cupcake, or cookie highlighted in the post.
To save time, we’ve integrated the Wordpress platform throughout our site. The goal is to drive as many pages as possible directly off of our blog content. This minimizes maintenance and allows us to concentrate on our core competency: sharing our cake artwork with the world.
Has the blog been a successful marketing tool for you?
Without a doubt, our blog is the centerpiece of our web presence and has been an extremely successful marketing tool. The blog receives upwards of 120,000 unique visitors a month and drives a large percentage of our orders.
How do you measure its success?
Measuring success is an interesting question. When we first started out, I placed a strong emphasis on building traffic. I was of the mindset, “the more traffic, the better.” And initially this worked well and helped drive orders. But we reached a saturation point where our high traffic started contributing to a deluge of e-mails and calls from “information seekers”—in other words, people not interested in placing an order, but more interested in finding out information about how to make our cakes.
We didn’t have the capacity to handle this deluge and realized that our “more traffic the better” mantra needed to be refined. We began focusing our content on products that lead to better order conversions. And rather then measuring aggregate traffic numbers, we focused our measurement on traffic from our strategic focus areas.
PCB has had a lot of press attention—magazines, newspapers, etc. Did you actively seek that, or did they find you?
Initially we had to seek out press contacts. Our initial strategy involved reaching out to media outlets via e-mail. Each e-mail included a portfolio of our products along with links back to our web site. We also found success through customer contacts that have recommended us to their media contacts. We have also worked hard to maintain relationships we’ve built with the media. This includes small things like sending holiday cards to larger partnerships to help promote complementary content on our blog.
At the end of the day, though, having a unique and strong product is the key to getting press attention.
You guys make some amazing cakes and cookies, so there’s an obvious visual element to your business. Have you done any marketing on Flickr or even YouTube?
Thanks, my wife is amazingly talented. :)
We’ve heavily leveraged Flickr as an outlet for our cakes. In fact, our Most Popular Cakes gallery is driven off the Flickr API. It displays all of our “Most Interesting” photos based on Flickr’s data. Flickr has also helped us from a media perspective. Our initial contact with CNN occurred through Flickr and we’ve developed various relationships with other bloggers through Flickr.
We’ve also created a YouTube channel but have not fully leveraged it because of the time commitment required to create videos. We have future plans to expand this.
Between the web site and the blog, and taking photos and posting them on Flickr, and all the other stuff you have going on—it sounds like a ton of work! I can imagine another small business owner thinking, “We’d never have the time to do all this.” How do you guys manage these online efforts?
I currently handle all the online efforts, but in the long run as we look to expand our online efforts, we’ll have to look to hire additional help. I agree that a sole proprietor would find it difficult from a time commitment perspective to manage an online effort themselves at the level that we do.
But as with any new business in startup mode, if you devote extra effort up-front, whether that be by investing your own time or investing money to hire someone else, you’ll see the dividends pay off in the future. It takes time to build a strong web presence, but once you gain momentum and develop a streamlined process, the site’s popularity will help sustain your business. The key assumption here is you have a strong product or service to sell.
Do you guys have time to pay much attention to the search marketing industry? Do you read Search Engine Land and other sites like that?
I read industry sites like SEL religiously. I make time to do it because I strongly believe our success is highly correlated with our reach and visibility throughout the Internet. My favorites include the typical characters: Matt Cutts, Blogstorm, SEO Book, Small Business SEM, and Sphinn.
I also pay close attention to blogs in our industry. I’ve been particularly impressed with a relatively new blog called CakeSpy.com, created by Jessie Olsen. Jessie has done a fantastic job of creating compelling content while simultaneously (and subtly) pushing her cake artwork.
What about PPC? Do you do any paid search advertising?
We haven’t explored this option yet and don’t have any plans at this time.
What’s next for PCB? Any new marketing ideas you’re excited to try?
Some of the things we are working on:
* We are working on opening an online store to sell complementary cake products
* Creating international versions of our blog to further drive international traffic
* We are also exploring opening a retail shop
For the future, we realize we need to take our blog to the next level in order to continue our successes. We’ll look to introduce more social media aspects to our blog to encourage greater user engagement. Specifically, some of the things we are thinking about include the ability for users to create their own profiles, vote for their favorite cakes, and engage in more polls and contests.
Thanks, Jesse. Keep up the great work.
As you can see, Pink Cake Box is a small business that understands the power of search and online marketing. If you are (or know of) a small business owner with a great story to tell about how you’re using the Internet to grow your business, please contact me at my blog, Small Business SEM.
Friends With Benefits: Do Facebook Friends Provide the Same Support as Those In Real Life?
I have a friend named Sue. Actually, “Sue” isn’t her real name, and she isn’t really a friend: she’s something akin to a lost sorority sister—we went to the same college, participated in the same activities and had a lot of mutual respect and admiration for one another. But since graduation, we’ve fallen out of touch, and the only way I know about Sue, her life and her family is through her Facebook updates. That’s why I felt almost like a voyeur when Sue announced, via Facebook, the death of her young son. I was surprised she had chosen to share something so personal online–and then ashamed, because since when did I become the arbiter of what’s appropriate for that kind of grief?
The more I thought about it, the more I realized Facebook might be the perfect venue for tragic news: it’s the fastest way to disseminate important information to the group without having to deal with painful phone calls; it allowed well-meaning friends and acquaintances to instantly pass on condolences, which the family could read at their leisure, and it eliminated to possibility that were I to run into Sue in the supermarket, I’d ask unknowingly about her son and force her to replay the story over again.
Numerous studies have shown that a strong network of friends can be crucial to getting through a crisis, and can help you be healthier in general. But could virtual friends, like the group of online buddies that reached out to Sue, be just as helpful as the flesh-and-blood versions? In other words, do Facebook friends—and the support we get from them—count? These questions are all the more intriguing as the number of online social-network users increase. Facebook attracted 67.5 million visitors in the U.S. in April (according to ComScore Inc.), and the fastest-growing demographic is people over 35. It’s clear that connecting to friends, both close and distant, via the computer will become more the norm than novelty.
Researchers have yet to significantly study the social implications of Facebook, so what we do know is gleaned from general studies about friendship, and some of the emerging studies about online networking. First, a definition of “friend”: In research circles, experts define a friend as a close, equal, voluntary partnership—though Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, says that in reality, “friendships don’t have to be equal or close, and we know from research that friendships aren’t as voluntary as they seem,” because they’re often constricted by education, age and background. Friends on Facebook seem to mimic, if not replicate, this trend—there are people online that you are more likely to chat with every day, while others only make an appearance once or twice a year, content to spend the rest of the time residing silently in your friend queue. (Though the Facebook friends with whom you have frequent social interaction might not be people you interact with often in "real life.")
In life, having 700 people in your circle of friends could get overwhelming, but that’s less of an issue online. “Research suggests that people are only intermittently in touch with many of their online ‘friends’ but correspond regularly with only a few good friends,” says Shelley E. Taylor, professor of psychology at The University of California, Los Angeles. “That said, creating networks to ease the transition to new places can be hugely helpful to people, offsetting loneliness until new friends are made.”
In other words, Facebook may not replace the full benefits of real friendship, but it definitely beats the alternative. I conducted a very informal poll via my Facebook status update, asking if Facebook makes us better friends. A high-school pal, with whom I haven't spoken in about 10 years, confessed that since she had her baby, corresponding via Facebook has been a lifeline—and even if she wasn’t actively commenting, it was nice to know what people were up to. “Any electronic communication where you don’t have to be in the same physical space is going to decrease feelings of isolation,” says Dr. Adams.
Several people in my online network admit that Facebook doesn’t make them a better friend, but a better acquaintance, more likely to dash of a quick happy birthday e-mail, or to comment on the photo of a new puppy. But that’s not a bad thing. Having a large group of “friends” eager to comment on your daily life could be good for your self-esteem. When you get a new job, a celebratory lunch with your best friends will make you feel good and make for a fantastic memory. But the boost you get from the 15 Facebook friends who left encouraging comments can also make you happy.
“The way to think of this is before the Internet, we wouldn’t see our acquaintances very often: every once in a while, we might show up at a wedding and suddenly have 100 of our closest friends around," says James Fowler, associate professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. "With Facebook, it’s like every day is a wedding.” And just like leaving a wedding may leave you feeling energized and inspired by reconnecting to old pals, so can spending time on Facebook,” says Fowler.
While Fowler’s research also shows that bad habits like smoking and weight gain can be contagious among close friends, emotions like happiness and sadness are easily transferable through acquaintances. The good news? “Because happiness spreads more easily then unhappiness, getting positive comments from your Facebook friends is more likely to make you happy than sad,” he says.
Shy people who may not always be able to engage friends in the real world are finding solace in the structure of Facebook. Though people who identify as shy have a smaller circle of Facebook friends than those who don’t, they are better able to engage with the online friends they do have. “Because people don’t have to interact face-to-face, that’s why we’re seeing them having relationships: they can think more about what they have to say and how they want to say it,” says Craig Ross, a graduate student in psychology at the University of Windsor who studies online social networks.
And what of my “friend” “Sue”? Can the support she received from Facebook friends upon learning about the death of her son replicate the support that would come from friends stopping by the house? It’s impossible to replace the warm feelings—or brain-boosting endorphins—that come from human-on-human contact, and you can’t send someone a casserole through Facebook. But grieving online can have powerful and productive benefits. Diana Nash, professor of psychology at Marymount Manhattan College, who has studied how college students use MySpace to deal with grief, notes that, “One of the primary desires that we all have is for someone to really listen to us in a deep kind of way. They want to be listened to,” she says. Her research shows that by sharing their grief on MySpace, her subjects felt more listened to and more visible, and doing so helped them heal.
Posting personal experiences, no matter how painful, also allows acquaintances who have lived through similar experiences to reach out, either with information about support groups or just an empathetic ear. "The idea of sharing a commonality helps make it a little more bearable. You're not alone, and there are others going through what you went through," says Nash. "It doesn't take away the pain, but it can lessen the pain and make you feel not so alone.”
The majority of times we reach out on Facebook, however, it's not about a tragedy, but a smaller problem for which we need advice: good movers in the San Francisco area, a copy of yesterday's newspaper, answers to a question about taxes. This is another place where the large Facebook networks come in handy. In real life, people tend to befriend people who think thoughts and live very similar lives to their own, but because on Facebook people often "friend" classmates, people met at parties, and friends-of-friends, the networks include individuals who wouldn’t make the "real friend" cut. Having that diversity of opinion and experience available online increases the diversity of responses received when posting a question, which allows you to make a better-informed decision.
Still, there are experts who worry that too much time online keeps us from living satisfying lives in the real world. "It's great to have a lot of Facebook friends, but how many of those will friends will show when you're really in trouble?" asks Michael J Bugeja, a professor of communications at Iowa State university of Science and Technology and author of Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age. He notes the world of difference between someone typing a frowny emotiocon upon hearing that you’ve been in a car crash and showing up to help you get home. He also says that Facebook, with its focus on existing relationships—and its ability to codify and categorize those relationships—in some ways belies the promise of the Internet. "Rather than opening us up to a global community, it is putting us into groups," he says.
That's why Facebook works best as an amplification of a "real life" social life, not a replacement—even as time and technology progress and the lines between online interactions and real-world experiences continue to blur.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized Facebook might be the perfect venue for tragic news: it’s the fastest way to disseminate important information to the group without having to deal with painful phone calls; it allowed well-meaning friends and acquaintances to instantly pass on condolences, which the family could read at their leisure, and it eliminated to possibility that were I to run into Sue in the supermarket, I’d ask unknowingly about her son and force her to replay the story over again.
Numerous studies have shown that a strong network of friends can be crucial to getting through a crisis, and can help you be healthier in general. But could virtual friends, like the group of online buddies that reached out to Sue, be just as helpful as the flesh-and-blood versions? In other words, do Facebook friends—and the support we get from them—count? These questions are all the more intriguing as the number of online social-network users increase. Facebook attracted 67.5 million visitors in the U.S. in April (according to ComScore Inc.), and the fastest-growing demographic is people over 35. It’s clear that connecting to friends, both close and distant, via the computer will become more the norm than novelty.
Researchers have yet to significantly study the social implications of Facebook, so what we do know is gleaned from general studies about friendship, and some of the emerging studies about online networking. First, a definition of “friend”: In research circles, experts define a friend as a close, equal, voluntary partnership—though Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, says that in reality, “friendships don’t have to be equal or close, and we know from research that friendships aren’t as voluntary as they seem,” because they’re often constricted by education, age and background. Friends on Facebook seem to mimic, if not replicate, this trend—there are people online that you are more likely to chat with every day, while others only make an appearance once or twice a year, content to spend the rest of the time residing silently in your friend queue. (Though the Facebook friends with whom you have frequent social interaction might not be people you interact with often in "real life.")
In life, having 700 people in your circle of friends could get overwhelming, but that’s less of an issue online. “Research suggests that people are only intermittently in touch with many of their online ‘friends’ but correspond regularly with only a few good friends,” says Shelley E. Taylor, professor of psychology at The University of California, Los Angeles. “That said, creating networks to ease the transition to new places can be hugely helpful to people, offsetting loneliness until new friends are made.”
In other words, Facebook may not replace the full benefits of real friendship, but it definitely beats the alternative. I conducted a very informal poll via my Facebook status update, asking if Facebook makes us better friends. A high-school pal, with whom I haven't spoken in about 10 years, confessed that since she had her baby, corresponding via Facebook has been a lifeline—and even if she wasn’t actively commenting, it was nice to know what people were up to. “Any electronic communication where you don’t have to be in the same physical space is going to decrease feelings of isolation,” says Dr. Adams.
Several people in my online network admit that Facebook doesn’t make them a better friend, but a better acquaintance, more likely to dash of a quick happy birthday e-mail, or to comment on the photo of a new puppy. But that’s not a bad thing. Having a large group of “friends” eager to comment on your daily life could be good for your self-esteem. When you get a new job, a celebratory lunch with your best friends will make you feel good and make for a fantastic memory. But the boost you get from the 15 Facebook friends who left encouraging comments can also make you happy.
“The way to think of this is before the Internet, we wouldn’t see our acquaintances very often: every once in a while, we might show up at a wedding and suddenly have 100 of our closest friends around," says James Fowler, associate professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. "With Facebook, it’s like every day is a wedding.” And just like leaving a wedding may leave you feeling energized and inspired by reconnecting to old pals, so can spending time on Facebook,” says Fowler.
While Fowler’s research also shows that bad habits like smoking and weight gain can be contagious among close friends, emotions like happiness and sadness are easily transferable through acquaintances. The good news? “Because happiness spreads more easily then unhappiness, getting positive comments from your Facebook friends is more likely to make you happy than sad,” he says.
Shy people who may not always be able to engage friends in the real world are finding solace in the structure of Facebook. Though people who identify as shy have a smaller circle of Facebook friends than those who don’t, they are better able to engage with the online friends they do have. “Because people don’t have to interact face-to-face, that’s why we’re seeing them having relationships: they can think more about what they have to say and how they want to say it,” says Craig Ross, a graduate student in psychology at the University of Windsor who studies online social networks.
And what of my “friend” “Sue”? Can the support she received from Facebook friends upon learning about the death of her son replicate the support that would come from friends stopping by the house? It’s impossible to replace the warm feelings—or brain-boosting endorphins—that come from human-on-human contact, and you can’t send someone a casserole through Facebook. But grieving online can have powerful and productive benefits. Diana Nash, professor of psychology at Marymount Manhattan College, who has studied how college students use MySpace to deal with grief, notes that, “One of the primary desires that we all have is for someone to really listen to us in a deep kind of way. They want to be listened to,” she says. Her research shows that by sharing their grief on MySpace, her subjects felt more listened to and more visible, and doing so helped them heal.
Posting personal experiences, no matter how painful, also allows acquaintances who have lived through similar experiences to reach out, either with information about support groups or just an empathetic ear. "The idea of sharing a commonality helps make it a little more bearable. You're not alone, and there are others going through what you went through," says Nash. "It doesn't take away the pain, but it can lessen the pain and make you feel not so alone.”
The majority of times we reach out on Facebook, however, it's not about a tragedy, but a smaller problem for which we need advice: good movers in the San Francisco area, a copy of yesterday's newspaper, answers to a question about taxes. This is another place where the large Facebook networks come in handy. In real life, people tend to befriend people who think thoughts and live very similar lives to their own, but because on Facebook people often "friend" classmates, people met at parties, and friends-of-friends, the networks include individuals who wouldn’t make the "real friend" cut. Having that diversity of opinion and experience available online increases the diversity of responses received when posting a question, which allows you to make a better-informed decision.
Still, there are experts who worry that too much time online keeps us from living satisfying lives in the real world. "It's great to have a lot of Facebook friends, but how many of those will friends will show when you're really in trouble?" asks Michael J Bugeja, a professor of communications at Iowa State university of Science and Technology and author of Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age. He notes the world of difference between someone typing a frowny emotiocon upon hearing that you’ve been in a car crash and showing up to help you get home. He also says that Facebook, with its focus on existing relationships—and its ability to codify and categorize those relationships—in some ways belies the promise of the Internet. "Rather than opening us up to a global community, it is putting us into groups," he says.
That's why Facebook works best as an amplification of a "real life" social life, not a replacement—even as time and technology progress and the lines between online interactions and real-world experiences continue to blur.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Climate change is happening 'here, now': US report
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The harmful effects of global warming are being felt "here and now and in your backyard," a groundbreaking US government report on climate change has warned.
"Climate change is happening now, it is not something that will happen decades or centuries in the future," Jerry Melillo of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, one of the lead authors of the report, told AFP.
Climate change, which the report blames largely on human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases, "is under way in the United States and projected to grow," said the report by the US Global Change Research Program, a grouping of a dozen government agencies and the White House.
The report is the first on climate change since President Barack Obama took office and outlines in plain, non-scientific terms how global warming has resulted in an increase of extreme weather such as the powerful heatwave that swept Europe in 2003, claiming tens of thousands of lives.
Hurricanes have become fiercer as they gather greater strength over oceans warmed by climate change.
Global warming impacts everything from water supplies to energy, farming to health. And those impacts are expected to increase, according to the report titled "Global Change Impacts in the United States."
Areas of the country that already had high levels of rain or snowfall have seen increases in precipitation because of climate change, says the report, which focuses on the United States but also tackles global climate change issues.
"We focused on regions of the US because another big message we wanted to get across is that not only is climate change happening now, but it's happening in your backyard," said Melillo.
"You care a great deal more about a tornado in your own backyard than one half a world away," said David Doniger, senior policy director at the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Arid areas, such as the largely desert US Southwest, are experiencing more droughts.
On the US Gulf Coast, sea level rise is particularly pressing; in the Northwest, how long snowpack sits on the mountains might be an issue, and farmers in the Midwest are concerned because winters have become milder, allowing more pests to survive the season.
But climate change also operates in a global nexus and the United States cannot be viewed in isolation, the 196-page report says.
Climate change-related food production problems in one part of the world can affect food prices and production decisions in the United States, he added.
"There is a whole host of connections when you discuss climate change; the US cannot be viewed as an island," Melillo said.
The chief aim of the report is to help US policymakers and the general public make decisions on how to act to halt climate change, Melillo said.
The report's release comes just six months before countries from around the world meet in the Danish capital Copenhagen for a UN conference that aims to produce an ambitious, new climate pact aimed at rolling back global warming.
Experts have been thrashing out a draft of a negotiating text for the new pact meant to take effect from the end of 2012, spelling out curbs on emissions by 2020 that will be deepened by 2050.
Reports issued by the previous administration of president George W. Bush -- who famously rejected the Kyoto Protocol, the previous UN framework on climate change -- were highly technical and did not cover as many issues as the sweeping first report issued by the Obama White House, said Melillo.
The report stresses the need for immediate action against global warming, saying: "Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today."
"We have the power to determine how bad this could be and to avoid the worst impacts of global warming," said Doniger.
"It's like Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol,' where the ghosts come and show Scrooge the way the future could unfold into either a happy future or a disastrous future.
"This shows us that the future is in our hands, just as it was in Scrooge's hands," said Doniger.
"Climate change is happening now, it is not something that will happen decades or centuries in the future," Jerry Melillo of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, one of the lead authors of the report, told AFP.
Climate change, which the report blames largely on human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases, "is under way in the United States and projected to grow," said the report by the US Global Change Research Program, a grouping of a dozen government agencies and the White House.
The report is the first on climate change since President Barack Obama took office and outlines in plain, non-scientific terms how global warming has resulted in an increase of extreme weather such as the powerful heatwave that swept Europe in 2003, claiming tens of thousands of lives.
Hurricanes have become fiercer as they gather greater strength over oceans warmed by climate change.
Global warming impacts everything from water supplies to energy, farming to health. And those impacts are expected to increase, according to the report titled "Global Change Impacts in the United States."
Areas of the country that already had high levels of rain or snowfall have seen increases in precipitation because of climate change, says the report, which focuses on the United States but also tackles global climate change issues.
"We focused on regions of the US because another big message we wanted to get across is that not only is climate change happening now, but it's happening in your backyard," said Melillo.
"You care a great deal more about a tornado in your own backyard than one half a world away," said David Doniger, senior policy director at the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Arid areas, such as the largely desert US Southwest, are experiencing more droughts.
On the US Gulf Coast, sea level rise is particularly pressing; in the Northwest, how long snowpack sits on the mountains might be an issue, and farmers in the Midwest are concerned because winters have become milder, allowing more pests to survive the season.
But climate change also operates in a global nexus and the United States cannot be viewed in isolation, the 196-page report says.
Climate change-related food production problems in one part of the world can affect food prices and production decisions in the United States, he added.
"There is a whole host of connections when you discuss climate change; the US cannot be viewed as an island," Melillo said.
The chief aim of the report is to help US policymakers and the general public make decisions on how to act to halt climate change, Melillo said.
The report's release comes just six months before countries from around the world meet in the Danish capital Copenhagen for a UN conference that aims to produce an ambitious, new climate pact aimed at rolling back global warming.
Experts have been thrashing out a draft of a negotiating text for the new pact meant to take effect from the end of 2012, spelling out curbs on emissions by 2020 that will be deepened by 2050.
Reports issued by the previous administration of president George W. Bush -- who famously rejected the Kyoto Protocol, the previous UN framework on climate change -- were highly technical and did not cover as many issues as the sweeping first report issued by the Obama White House, said Melillo.
The report stresses the need for immediate action against global warming, saying: "Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today."
"We have the power to determine how bad this could be and to avoid the worst impacts of global warming," said Doniger.
"It's like Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol,' where the ghosts come and show Scrooge the way the future could unfold into either a happy future or a disastrous future.
"This shows us that the future is in our hands, just as it was in Scrooge's hands," said Doniger.
Prototype Nokia phone recharges without wires
Pardon the cliche, but it's one of the holiest of Holy Grails of technology: Wireless power. And while early lab experiments have been able to "beam" electricity a few feet to power a light bulb, the day when our laptops and cell phones can charge without having to plug them in to a wall socket still seems decades in the future.
Nokia, however, has taken another baby step in that direction with the invention of a cell phone that recharges itself using a unique system: It harvests ambient radio waves from the air, and turns that energy into usable power. Enough, at least, to keep a cell phone from running out of juice.
While "traditional" (if there is such a thing) wireless power systems are specifically designed with a transmitter and receiver in mind, Nokia's system isn't finicky about where it gets its wireless waves. TV, radio, other mobile phone systems -- all of this stuff just bounces around the air and most of it is wasted, absorbed into the environment or scattered into the ether. Nokia picks up all the bits and pieces of these waves and uses the collected electromagnetic energy to create electrical current, then uses that to recharge the phone's battery. A huge range of frequencies can be utilized by the system (there's no other way, really, as the energy in any given wave is infinitesimal). It's the same idea that Tesla was exploring 100 years ago, just on a tiny scale.
Mind you, harvesting ambient electromagnetic energy is never going to offer enough electricity to power your whole house or office, but it just might be enough to keep a cell phone alive and kicking. Currently Nokia is able to harvest all of 5 milliwatts from the air; the goal is to increase that to 20 milliwatts in the short term and 50 milliwatts down the line. That wouldn't be enough to keep the phone alive during an active call, but would be enough to slowly recharge the cell phone battery while it's in standby mode, theoretically offering infinite power -- provided you're not stuck deep underground where radio waves can't penetrate.
Nokia says it hopes to commercialize the technology in three to five years.
Nokia, however, has taken another baby step in that direction with the invention of a cell phone that recharges itself using a unique system: It harvests ambient radio waves from the air, and turns that energy into usable power. Enough, at least, to keep a cell phone from running out of juice.
While "traditional" (if there is such a thing) wireless power systems are specifically designed with a transmitter and receiver in mind, Nokia's system isn't finicky about where it gets its wireless waves. TV, radio, other mobile phone systems -- all of this stuff just bounces around the air and most of it is wasted, absorbed into the environment or scattered into the ether. Nokia picks up all the bits and pieces of these waves and uses the collected electromagnetic energy to create electrical current, then uses that to recharge the phone's battery. A huge range of frequencies can be utilized by the system (there's no other way, really, as the energy in any given wave is infinitesimal). It's the same idea that Tesla was exploring 100 years ago, just on a tiny scale.
Mind you, harvesting ambient electromagnetic energy is never going to offer enough electricity to power your whole house or office, but it just might be enough to keep a cell phone alive and kicking. Currently Nokia is able to harvest all of 5 milliwatts from the air; the goal is to increase that to 20 milliwatts in the short term and 50 milliwatts down the line. That wouldn't be enough to keep the phone alive during an active call, but would be enough to slowly recharge the cell phone battery while it's in standby mode, theoretically offering infinite power -- provided you're not stuck deep underground where radio waves can't penetrate.
Nokia says it hopes to commercialize the technology in three to five years.
British Airways asks staff to work for free for up to month
British Airways is asking thousands of its staff to work for free for up to four weeks, spokeswoman Kirsten Millard said Tuesday.
In an e-mail to all its staff, the airline offered workers between one and four weeks of unpaid leave -- but with the option to work during this period. British Airways employs just more than 40,000 people in the United Kingdom.
Last month, the company posted a record annual loss of £400 million ($656 million).
Its chief executive declared at the time there were "absolutely no signs of recovery" in the industry.
"I'm 30 years in this business and I've never seen anything like this. This is by far the biggest crisis the industry has ever faced," said Willie Walsh, British Airways' chief executive.
A spokesman for one of Britain's biggest unions said its workers could not afford to work for free for a month.
"It's all well and good for Willie Walsh to say he's prepared to work for free when he earns four times in a month what they do in a year," said Ciaran Naidoo, a spokesman for Unite.
He pointed out that the airline was not ordering staff to work without pay.
"It's a request -- you can take unpaid leave or you can work for free, and the chances of people working for free are very unlikely, but there might be some people who want to take unpaid leave."
Demand for the airline's passenger seats and cargo holds fell during the last financial year, while its fuel bill rocketed to almost £3 billion ($4.7 billion).
Walsh said British Airways' woes were inextricably linked to the downturn in the global economy and that there had been no sign of any "green shoots" of recovery.
Like its premium-class competitors, British Airways is losing customers to cheaper rivals.
The airline's premium passenger numbers fell 13% in the second half of last year, in line with the industry average.
Total traffic fell 3.4% and while the airline carried 33.1 million passengers last year, it was a drop of 4.3% on the previous year.
The dip in demand for British Airways' flights has forced a switch in strategy at the airline.
From the end of last year, it has been trying to tempt passengers with lower fares, sacrificing profit per seat for "bums on seats."
It plans to reduce capacity by 4% next winter by parking up to 16 aircraft.
--CNN's Alysen Miller contributed to this report.
In an e-mail to all its staff, the airline offered workers between one and four weeks of unpaid leave -- but with the option to work during this period. British Airways employs just more than 40,000 people in the United Kingdom.
Last month, the company posted a record annual loss of £400 million ($656 million).
Its chief executive declared at the time there were "absolutely no signs of recovery" in the industry.
"I'm 30 years in this business and I've never seen anything like this. This is by far the biggest crisis the industry has ever faced," said Willie Walsh, British Airways' chief executive.
A spokesman for one of Britain's biggest unions said its workers could not afford to work for free for a month.
"It's all well and good for Willie Walsh to say he's prepared to work for free when he earns four times in a month what they do in a year," said Ciaran Naidoo, a spokesman for Unite.
He pointed out that the airline was not ordering staff to work without pay.
"It's a request -- you can take unpaid leave or you can work for free, and the chances of people working for free are very unlikely, but there might be some people who want to take unpaid leave."
Demand for the airline's passenger seats and cargo holds fell during the last financial year, while its fuel bill rocketed to almost £3 billion ($4.7 billion).
Walsh said British Airways' woes were inextricably linked to the downturn in the global economy and that there had been no sign of any "green shoots" of recovery.
Like its premium-class competitors, British Airways is losing customers to cheaper rivals.
The airline's premium passenger numbers fell 13% in the second half of last year, in line with the industry average.
Total traffic fell 3.4% and while the airline carried 33.1 million passengers last year, it was a drop of 4.3% on the previous year.
The dip in demand for British Airways' flights has forced a switch in strategy at the airline.
From the end of last year, it has been trying to tempt passengers with lower fares, sacrificing profit per seat for "bums on seats."
It plans to reduce capacity by 4% next winter by parking up to 16 aircraft.
--CNN's Alysen Miller contributed to this report.
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