Frontier Airlines to go on hiring spree

Frontier Airlines to go on hiring spree

Planning to expand to more warm-weather markets, Denver-based Frontier Airlines is going on a hiring spree with hopes of recruiting 800 flight attendants and 300 pilots by the end of next year.

Frontier is still one of the nation’s smallest commercial carriers, with only 63 planes. But the airline’s owner, Indigo Partners, wants to spread Frontier’s new ultra-low-cost business model across the country, following the lead of Spirit Airlines, based in Miramar, Fla.

Frontier announced earlier this year that is planned to add 42 routes, including several warm-weather destinations such as Orlando, Fla., Houston and Phoenix.

The carrier also plans to expand its fleet to 120 planes by 2021, while retiring smaller aircraft, such as the Airbus 319, replacing them with larger Airbus 320s and Airbus 321s, Frontier spokesman Jim Faulkner said.

Navajo committee opposes tramway at Grand Canyon

FLAGSTAFF, ARIZ.

Legislation allowing a Grand Canyon tramway and other tourism development at the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers received a clear message of disapproval during its first committee hearing before Navajo Nation lawmakers last week.

The five-member Law and Order Committee unanimously opposed the Grand Canyon Escalade legislation during a hearing at Twin Arrows Casino Resort. Members said voting for the project would be a gamble, would require money that should be used elsewhere and didn’t have the support of the tribe’s economic development division, justice department or historic preservation-office advisers.

Four years in the works, legislation calls for approving a master development agreement for the Grand Canyon Escalade Project, a commitment by the Navajo Nation of $65 million to build infrastructure to the isolated site and the withdrawal of 420 acres of tribal land for the development.

The project would include an 8-person, 1,400-foot gondola tramway that would shuttle visitors from the rim to the bottom of the canyon where there would be a riverwalk, food pavilion and amphitheater. On the rim, plans include a multimedia complex, a Navajoland Discovery Center, restaurants, an RV park, retail stores and hotels. The tribe would be entitled to between 8 and 18 percent of gross revenue based on visitor attendance.

Singapore hotel to close for facelift

SINGAPORE

The colonial landmark Raffles Hotel Singapore said it will close briefly from the end of next year for renovations to modernize the property.

The work will begin in January and will be carried out in phases, starting with the hotel’s Long Bar, which created the signature drink Singapore Sling.

The hotel said in a statement that it will close from late 2017 until the second quarter of 2018 for the final phase of its renovations.

The 129-year-old hotel, owned by Katara Hospitality, a Qatar-based global hotelier, has accommodated such notables as Rudyard Kipling and Michael Jackson.

Geography quiz

Q. What are the countries that are totally within the Iberian Peninsula?

A. Spain, Portugal and Andorra. The British Crown colony of Gibraltar also is part of the peninsula, and some references include a sliver of France.

Combined dispatches