SATSOP – Duke Energy North America broke ground Wednesday on a new $300 million power plant at the Satsop Development Park in Grays Harbor County, about 30 miles west of Olympia. The 600-megawatt plant will supply electricity to Washington and the regional wholesale market by mid-2003. Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy said the natural gas-fired plant will generate enough energy to serve about 600,000 households. The plant will be built on a site acquired from Energy Northwest that is next to the terminated Satsop nuclear plant projects, which were never operational. The Duke Energy plant will use some facilities built for those plants, such as electric transmission and water systems.
INDIANAPOLIS – American Trans Air will freeze employee wages for 12 months and cut senior executive pay by 10 percent, the airline’s president and chief executive said Wednesday. John Tague’s announcement at the annual shareholders meeting of ATA parent Amtran Inc. came three weeks after the airline announced it was laying off 1,500 of its 8,000 employees and reducing its flight schedule by 20 percent. Those cuts and the new measures announced Wednesday are in response to the industry downturn following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Tague told shareholders that 1,200 of the layoffs had been accomplished, with 300 more pending as senior pilots are trained to fly newly delivered aircraft. The last of ATA’s aging Boeing 727s will be retired within 10 days, leaving only 757s and 737s in the airline’s fleet.
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Financially troubled ExciteAtHome stopped taking orders for its high-speed Internet service Wednesday, leaving cable operators with no way of hooking up new subscribers. The company, which filed for bankruptcy protection last month, notified its cable partners that it would no longer take orders as of noon. Its Web site also stopped taking requests for service. Existing service is not affected by the move, although subscribers will not be able to make changes to their accounts, said Laura Oberhelman, spokeswoman for Cox Communications, a major ExciteAtHome partner. ExciteAtHome, will continue to take orders but will not promise installation before Oct. 24, Oberhelman said.
MONTREAL – Air Canada is starting up a discount airline aimed at Canadian leisure travelers looking for vacation bargains to Florida or cheap flights across the country. Tango airline will start taking reservations today for flights beginning Nov. 1, according to a statement released Wednesday. The announcement comes as Air Canada, the nation’s dominant carrier, is cutting thousands of jobs and seeking government help to cope with lost revenue in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Air Canada said plans for the Tango carrier were in place before the terrorist attacks. Tango should help stimulate the market and reduce costs, said Robert Milton, the Air Canada president. Tango’s fleet will include 13 Airbus A320 aircraft reassigned from Air Canada.
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