Landed: British Airways begins nonstop service today between London and New Orleans, with the first flight scheduled to land around 7:30 p.m. at the Louis Armstrong International Airport and taking off for London again at 9:40 p.m. British Airways Senior Vice President Simon Brooks tells WWL Radio the airline will make four trips per week between London-Heathrow airport and New Orleans. Greater New Orleans Inc. President Michael Hecht says there is definitely demand for the flight. “We are already, without a direct flight, sending 435 people a day to western Europe,” Hecht says. “It is now up to us as a community to make sure the flight is a huge success.” Read the full story.
Heating up: Cool Planet, a Colorado-based agricultural technology company that plans to build a manufacturing facility at the Central Louisiana Regional Port, recently secured $19.3 million in funding for construction of the proposed Louisiana facility. The Town Talk reports Cool Planet has raised $30 million over the past 18 months, at a time when investors have pulled back from agricultural technology startups. AgFunder reported a 30% drop in investment in agricultural technology in 2016. A spokesperson for Cool Planet says the company plans to start construction on the port facility in the second half of this year, with production of its engineered biocarbon products expected to start in 2018. Read the full story.
Lowered expectations: U.S. economic growth is expected to accelerate this year and next, yet remain modest, even if President Donald Trump’s promised tax cuts and infrastructure spending are implemented, according to a new survey of 50 economists by the National Association for Business Economics. The Associated Press reports the economists forecast the economy to grow a solid 2.3% this year and 2.5% in 2018. Those rates would be up from 2016’s anemic pace of 1.6%. Still, those rates are below the 3% to 4% growth that Trump has promised to bring about through steep corporate and individual tax cuts and more spending on roads, airports and tunnels. Read the full story.
