At a time when many airlines are cutting international flights, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has picked up a new carrier. Airport officials say Icelandair will begin four-times-a-week service between Seattle and Reykjavik on July 22. That’s nine days before the end of flights between Seattle and Copenhagen on SAS, which is pulling out of the market after 42 years of service at Sea-Tac. The result is that Icelandair will be the only Nordic carrier serving the West Coast. Icelandair plans to use a 183-seat Boeing 757-200ER for the 7½-hour flights.
Condominiums offer mortgage protection
Following the lead of the auto maker Hyundai, a Seattle condominium developer is offering mortgage protection to buyers who lose their jobs. Stellar Holdings is offering to cover mortgage payments for up to six months for buyers who lose their jobs within a year of purchase. The offer covers 27 units of the 109 units at Thornton Place near Northgate that have been on the market since last summer. The condos start at $299,950 for a 595-square-foot one-bedroom unit. It’s part of a trend started by Hyundai, which in January began advertising that buyers can return new cars if they are laid off within a year. A Seattle land use economist, Matthew Gardner, says Thornton Place is the first locally and perhaps nationally to offer layoff protection to mortgage buyers.
Washington Post’s chief gets a bonus
Washington Post Co. Chief Executive Donald Graham racked up his 18th year without a salary raise in 2008. But he earned a bonus last year, nearly doubling the value of his total compensation package, according to an Associated Press calculation of figures disclosed Wednesday. The Post is the owner of The Herald. Since Graham became chief executive in 1991, he has earned the same base salary of $400,000. But he earned another $400,000 for 2008 in performance-related pay, roughly doubling the value of his total compensation to $811,960, which includes $11,960 in 401(k) retirement contributions. Still, that’s about the same as he earned in 2006. Graham refused any performance-based bonus in 2007, just as he has declined increases in his base pay.
Pepsi chief executive paid $14.9 million
PepsiCo Chief Executive Indra Nooyi received compensation valued at $14.9 million in 2008, a slight increase from the previous year, the snack and beverage maker reported in a regulatory filing late Tuesday. But almost all her compensation consists of stock awards that have since lost value as the company’s stock tumbled. The total was about 1.2 percent greater than the $14.7 million Nooyi made in 2007, her first full year as chief executive of the Purchase, N.Y.-based company, maker of Pepsi soft drinks and Cheetos and other types of snack food.
From Herald news services
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
