The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 18

B6 Orlando Sentinel TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2001 Delta's next priority: Lure travelers back Disney prepares to cut animation salaries, jobs The contract Details of the tentative agreement, which would be in effect until May 2005, include: Pay increases ranging from 24 percent to 34 percent over the life of the contract For a veteran captain flying a Boeing 777, that will mean a salary of $320 an hour roughly $300,000 annually in three years. Pay increases of 63 percent over the contract's duration for pilots at Orlando-based pelta Express. The 1,350 pilots at the low-fare unit now earn about 30 percent less than their counterparts at the main airline. The union thinks changes to Ex-p'ress pilots' pay and work rules hanging over this department right now." Walt Disney President Robert Iger said that all Disney units, including animation are being asked to come up with "efficiencies" to better manage profitability. Disney has already told its 300 or so animation artists in Orlando that their salaries will be slashed by 30 percent No layoffs are expected here.

But, in California, Disney's group of 71 animators were told last week that only 38 of them would survive the cutbacks after the completion of the studio's current production Treas-ure Planet Richard Verrier of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. will come close to eliminating the disparity. Job security improvements. The deal ties the growth of Delta's 70-seat regional jet fleet to expansion of the carrier's main flights. Pilots want that limitation because they worry the airline would divert flights they now work to regional subsidiaries that operate the smaller jets.

More vacation time and enhanced retirement benefits. The carrier will bump its contribution to 401 (k) accounts from 2 percent to 3 percent of salaries. Full retroactive pay back to May 2, 2000. Source: Air Urn Pilots Association Both factions may be right. Ray Neidl, an analyst with ING Barings, anticipates low fares followed by rising prices.

Delta will have to absorb the extra costs for now, he said, because passengers won't tolerate price increases during a weak economy. In fact, many airlines are slashing fares to attract business travelers shopping for bargains. But Neidl expects the carrier to bolster its bottom line by bumping up fares eventually. "As soon as the economy strengthens, these costs will have to be passed through to the consumer," Neidl said. Union spokesman Gregg Holm said pilots so far have had mixed responses to Sunday's agreement, which would be effective until May 2005.

"We made some significant headway toward our goals. We didn't get everything we wanted," Holm said. "We've allowed the management team a certain amount of latitude to do what they need to do." DELTA FROM Bl whacking it blamed on the weakening economy, an ongoing pilot strike at its Comair subsidiary and declining bookings from customers concerned about a potential strike at Delta. With the strike threat over, the carrier hopes passengers will return to its ticket counters quickly. Several industry analysts boosted Delta's stock ratings Monday in light of the new contract, which still must win approval from the union's governing board and its 9,800 rank-and-file pilots.

Delta officials, who are prohibited by federal antitrust regulations from discussing future prices, said the deal has sparked widespread speculation about changes to the carrier's fares. "Some are saying we're going to have to raise our fares to pay for the cost of the contract. Others are saying we're going to have to lower our fares to lure customers back," Delta spokeswoman Cindi Kurczewski said. "I really can't speculate on what we may or may not do." LOS ANGELES TIMES Faced with shrinking in one of its cornerstone businesses, the Walt Disney Co. is planning to significantly retrench its feature animation operation by cutting dozens of jobs and slashing salaries.

In the past two weeks Disney officials have held two key meetings with department heads at its Burbank, animation facility, using a series of charts to illustrate their declining profits and hammer home that they think labor and production costs of the animated movies are too high. "It's a bad time at the Mouse factory," said a top animation source at Disney. "It's very, very depressing and there's a pall Gerald Stevens expanded too quickly, observers say FLOWERS from bi But the company never got beyond about 300 locations coast to coast. It spent excessively, critics said, paying more than $130 million for florists, a wire service, a flower importer and the Calyx Corolla floral catalog. It swallowed up stores too quickly, critics added, giving itself no time to integrate the businesses into the larger operation.

In Orlando, Gerald Stevens changed the face of the floral industry, initially purchasing 16 mom-and-pop stores, then closing or merging six of the outlets to leave it with 10 retailers. The purchases were among the best-known flower peddlers in the area, including House of Flowers, Orlando Florists and European Floral Gallery. The stores were never renamed "Gerald Stevens" so as not to interfere with customer loyalty But problems mounted. f. if tDf? i r.

g-Zm t4 igT Maria M. Perotin can be reached at mperotinorlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5717. Since the fall of 1998, the company has lost more than $60 million. And its stock value has withered. Shares that were trading at more than $25 apiece just a year ago fetched less than a dime at the close of business Monday.

Gerald Stevens stock closed at 9 cents, losing 15 cents a share, in the over-the-counter market. Orlando florists learned of the bankruptcy filing Monday. The company's prepared statement said it expected a $7 million line of credit from Bank of America. Additionally, the company said, it is well into a key flower-buying period, the cluster of three holidays: Easter, Professional Assistants formerly Secretary's) Week and Mother's Day. Susan Strother Clarke can be reached at sclarkeorlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5414.

be presented," says Susan Ness, a member of the FCC, Some of them, she says, "are mind-boggling." Broadcasters will hold on to their analog channels until 2006 or until digital TV reaches 85 percent of the market, whichever comes later, so that consumers can still use their existing TVs until then. The tricky part is giving A-mericans an incentive to replace their current TVs with the new digital sets before that time. Station executives, gathered in Las Vegas this week for the National Association of Broadcasters annual show, say the cost of the sets from $2,500 to $7,000 is just too high and want the government to mandate that all new TVs come equipped with digital tuners to help drive down prices. But the Consumer Electronics Association argues that such a requirement would actually drive up the costs for shoppers. TV makers say adding more high-definition shows to channel lineups will entice consumers to snap up the sets.

And some broadcast executives agree. "The networks have to get behind this," said Paul Karpow-icz, a vice president at UN Television Corp. Wke services were used in this report ABC broadcasts 1 show in digital; CBS tias 18 mrnmmm 'z DIGITAL from Bl officially on the air by May 1 For now, the stations will convert most of their programming from analog to digital. They'll broadcast in analog and digital simultaneously on separate stations. WFTV, the ABC affiliate, will carry one high-definition television, or HDTV, show in its lineup -NYPD Blue.

CBS' WKMG-Channel 6 receives 18 shows from the network in HDTV. The three stations, including WESH-Channel 2, were supposed to make the conversion last year but received extensions from the Federal Communications Commission. WMFE-Channel 24 will be the final station in the market to add a digital broadcast in 2003. Many consumers expect to receive HDTV broadcasts when they buy digital sets. But HDTV, the clearest digital broadcast, is only one form of digital television.

In the early stages, most digital shows wiU be converted from analog, with only marginally improved picture quality. It seems increasingly unlikely that analog TVs the kind that most viewers have today will become obsolete by 2006, the government's goal for the changeover. "I dont think we really antici-pated" all the issues that would your hate-to-do list? Why not? Online Banking. Receive and pay bills online. Thoughts about bills surfacing at all the wrong moments? Then It's time to try Online Banking.

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