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Floridians seeking to invest in Ponce
Florida entrepreneurs seek to extend their businesses to Ponce
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Juan A. Hernández, The Weekly Journal
businesses that attend to the needs of each other. Business professionals from the education, technology, construction and health sectors are among the ones coming to Puerto Rico. “Since after the hurricanes, back in 2018, we have been advising business owners in Puerto Rico who wanted to establish their businesses in Central Florida after they had to shut down or lost A group of business owners and entrepreneurs from Central Florida seeking to extend its business interests to Puerto Rico, are scheduled to arrive to southern town of Ponce next week. The group, which is everything,” said Ortigoni. “We are aware of the constant traffic between Puerto Rico and Florida, which, indeed, makes Puerto Rico a natural place to look to strengthen business ties, but in those specific cases we recommended it was best for them to reopen in Puerto Rico than to start from zero in Florida.” “If Puerto Rico is economically strong we also sponsored by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce benefit from that strength,” she added. Those (HCC), will be received by its counterpart, the business owners would have the opportunity now Puerto Rico’s Southern to expand to Florida.” Chamber of Commerce (SCC). “Some of the most important business sectors from In fact, According to the HCC president, there are about 1,000 people a week considering Central Florida, particularly moving to Florida. Even she from Orange County, will be coming to the island looking for business opportunities in Ponce and other municipalities. Also, several government officials from the city, county, state and federal levels will be accompanying the group,” said HCC president Gabi Ortigoni. The municipal government of Ponce has an investment incentive program –Ponce Onboarding– that offers credits and incentives to investors. didn’t have specific statistics for the state’s demographics, Ortigoni said more than 50% of the Hispanic population in Orange County is of Puerto Rican descent. “What we want is for Puerto Rican businesspeople to not only focus on that 50% of “This visit comes after more Puerto Ricans, but also to than a year of conversations broaden their focus to include with the Southern Chamber of the other 50% of Hispanics Commerce and its president in their offer. We want to Salvador Rovira.” teach companies how to navigate through the
Both Rovira and Ortigoni coincided that this opportunities available to them and expand their is a bilateral effort to “strengthen the business customer base”, Ortigoni, explained. ecosystem of each city –Ponce and Orlando By the same token, she would like to help (Orange County)– and help entrepreneurs develop companies in Central Florida to learn about Some of the most important business sectors from Central Florida will be coming to the island, looking for business opportunities in Ponce and other municipalities.
investment opportunities in Puerto Rico so they can benefit from the advantages Act 22 and Act 60 have to offer to foreign investors.
On that subject, Francisco Rodríguez, CEO of investment advisory firm Birling Capital, explained that the municipal government of Ponce offers an investment incentive program –Ponce Onboarding– that offers credits and incentives on building taxes, rent, etc., to investors. The program also includes incentives for small and medium businesses (SMBs).
For SCC’s president it is necessary to “diversify the sources of income and be able to cross into such an important border as Central Florida is.”
“What we are looking for is for both entrepreneurs —those from Puerto Rico and those from Florida— to be in contact with each other… The importance of this mission is to identify the person who can help here, or there. It is time for the private industry and businesses to support these initiatives. Government and business organizations cannot do everything. We must make this meet work...,” Rovira said.
David Koenig, The Associated Press
DALLAS — U.S. airlines say they have hit a turning point: after a lousy first quarter, they expect to be profitable as Americans return to travel in the biggest numbers since the start of the pandemic. American Airlines is the latest carrier to give a rosy outlook for the rest of 2022. American said that although it lost $1.64 billion in the first quarter, sales hit a record in March, and the company expects to earn a profit in the second quarter. “Demand is as strong as we have ever seen it,”
American CEO Robert Isom told analysts. American’s upbeat view echoed similar comments from Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, which both predicted in recent days that they will earn full-year profits despite big losses in the first quarter. Air travel was subdued in January and February by the Omicron variant that caused an increase in
COVID-19 cases among both travelers and airline employees. But travelers came back in March, and airline executives believe that Americans are eager to travel this summer and won’t be discouraged by another, smaller uptick in coronavirus cases and higher airfares. Industry officials attribute rising airfares to a combination of covering higher fuel costs, a limited number of flights compared with schedules before the pandemic, and strong demand. “We are encouraged that indeed month to month we are seeing a greater increase in fares,” said Vasu Raja, American’s chief commercial officer. “We are seeing a lot of strength in the fare environment.” The recovery is being powered by leisure travelers, but the airlines say they are seeing more business travelers. American said overall business travel is 80% of pre-pandemic levels, dragged down by corporate travel, which is only 50% of 2019 levels. Isom said, however, that corporate bookings are the highest they have been since the start of the pandemic, “and we expect that to continue as more companies reopen their offices.” Along with higher revenue, however, airlines face higher costs for fuel and labor. American’s fuel bill more than doubled from a year earlier, and payroll costs rose more than 15%. Airlines struggled with a nascent recovery in travel last summer, as understaffing contributed to thousands of canceled flights. Now, facing a much bigger boom — the number of people going through checkpoints at U.S. airports is up more than 50% from a year ago to 2.1 million a day in April — it’s unclear whether airlines have done enough hiring to avoid bigger disruptions this summer.
Pilot Shortage
A major challenge will be the limited supply of pilots, which could limit the ability of airlines to operate as many flights as they would like. “The pilot shortage for the industry is real, and most airlines are simply not going to be able to realize their capacity plans because there simply aren’t enough pilots, at least not for the next five-plus years,” United CEO Scott Kirby told analysts Thursday.
American Airlines lost $1.64 billion in the first quarter, which was marred by thousands of flight cancellations, many of them because pilots and flight attendants were out with COVID-19. >AP Photo/Steven Senne, File
In fact,
American said it has hired 1,100 pilots since Air travel was the start of last year. Many of those came from subdued in January smaller, regional airlines, leaving those carriers and February with shortages. As a result, American will trim its by the Omicron American Eagle schedule in the second quarter.variant that caused Isom said American will adjust its schedule to an increase in match the number of available planes and pilots. COVID-19 cases He said American executives “have tremendous among both confidence” that the airline will operate smoothly travelers and through the summer.airline employees. Alaska Air Group, the parent of Alaska Airlines, said Thursday that it lost $143 million in the first quarter, compared with a $131 million loss a year earlier. Revenue more than doubled to $1.68 billion but was down 10% from the same quarter in 2019. The Seattle-based carrier forecast that secondquarter revenue will be 5% to 8% higher than in the same quarter of 2019.
We are encouraged that indeed month to month we are seeing a greater increase in fares. Vasu Raja Chief commercial officer, American Airlines

opinion
Zoimé Álvarez Rubio, Esq.
Executive Vice President at Puerto Rico Bankers Association
If it smells fishy, it’s fishy
We have all been in situations where our gut feeling has tried to communicate something to us that perhaps our mind and our heart have not yet grasped, and surely, we have all been told at some point to trust it. This is the message that the Puerto Rico Bankers Association wants to convey in the second phase of its educational effort against fraud, “It’s fishy.” A year ago, when we launched “It’s fishy,” the focus was to educate the consumer on the most common signs of various fraud schemes to help them avoid falling for the tricks of scammers. We alerted them about the pressure tactics used by scammers through phone calls, the danger of clicking on suspicious links, text messages and emails that urge an urgent action, and the importance of not giving out personal or financial information, especially when they were not the ones who initiated the call or communication. This time, under the slogan “if it smells fishy, it’s fishy” the effort focuses only on one sign, the one we have inside and is infallible: our instinct.
Through graphic pieces and videos, this second phase seeks to awaken in the population a sense of suspicion and premonition that makes them think twice before answering or replying to calls, text messages, emails, documents or electronic links from non-legitimate sources. It also calls for caution in the face of offers that are too good to be true and prizes from contests in which the person has not participated.
Although the campaign is aimed at the entire population, we call on the elderly community as they are more likely to be the victim of fraud under any of the schemes described. The Puerto Rico Elderly Affairs Office reported between October 2020 and September 2022, 156 complaints regarding the crime of fraud towards a person of elderly age, 613 for illegal appropriation and 14 for theft. Fraud will always be present. It has existed for thousands of years. In fact, the first documented fraud occurred in the year 300 BC. After so many years of coexisting with it, we would think that we all know how to identify it and avoid it, but unfortunately this is not the case. In 2021, the Puerto Rico Police Bureau dealt with 2,803 fraud complaints, 485 of them being telephone fraud, and as of mid-March 2022, 629 fraud complaints had already been received, 88 of them related to phone scams as well. In addition to the classic sketchy phone calls, some of the most common fraud schemes seen on the island are also carried out through social media networks; through the cloning of credit cards; and through mobile money transfer apps by asking the consumer to pay in advance for a product or service that they will soon discover they will not receive.
And it is that fraud, in the same way that water adapts to its container, adapts to the times and current issues and trends, always finding new ways to deceive people. Therefore, it can be hard to keep up with its new modalities. Nevertheless, remember that you already have the best tool to combat fraud: your instinct. Trust it. If it smells fishy, it’s fishy.

Hong Kong Disney
opens as COVID eases
Zen Soo and Ken Moritsugu, The Associated Press
BEIJING — Hong Kong relaxed pandemic restrictions last week, with Disneyland and museums reopening and nighttime restaurant dining resuming as the city’s worst COVID-19 outbreak appears to be fading.
Enthusiastic visitors ran into Disneyland the moment the gates opened after a three-month closure.
Popular theme parks were ordered to close in January as
Hong Kong’s fifth wave of the coronavirus took hold. Nearly 1.2 million people in the city of 7.4 million were infected in less than four months, and nearly 9,000 have died.
“Since Christmas we haven’t been back here, my daughter’s really happy, she’s been waiting so long,” said Joyce Mak, 36, who brought her young daughter to Disneyland. “Last night she was so excited, she didn’t want to go to sleep.” The city was caught off guard as the surge, driven by highly transmissible Omicron variant, overwhelmed hospitals. At the peak of the outbreak, bodies were stored in refrigerated containers because mortuaries were overwhelmed. The easing of restrictions came after officials acknowledged that people were getting frustrated with the measures, and that there must be a balance between fighting the epidemic and resumption of normal activities.
The relaxation of measures before Hong Kong has reached zero COVID-19 cases marks a shift from the city’s earlier strategy, which was aligned to mainland China’s zero-tolerance for any outbreaks. Previously, authorities were reluctant to ease measures until it was clear that outbreaks in the city were stamped out.
A 15-year-old student, Cynthia Cheung, said Disneyland was her “happiest place.”
“It’s been such a long time since coming here, last time was in December,” she said. “I really missed it.” Theme parks can now operate at 50% capacity, and visitors must show proof of vaccination. Disney employees held up signs reminding people to keep social distance.
Surge in Shanghai
In mainland China, the death toll rose to 25 in an outbreak in Shanghai that has all but shut down the country’s largest city. The relatively low number of reported deaths highlights China’s use of much narrower criteria than the rest of the world for its pandemic statistics.
Shanghai has eased the lockdown somewhat in areas that have not reported new cases in seven to 14 days, allowing residents out of their homes but still restricting them to their compounds or neighborhoods. Some said on social media that they dare not venture out anyway, wary of entering nearby areas that have had recent cases. Officials said last week that 12.3 million people in the city of 25 million are now in “control” or “prevention” areas, which are less restrictive than lockdown zones in a three-tier system. That is 4 million more than 10 days ago, they said.
However, one of the city’s 16 districts announced a week ago that no residents would be allowed to leave their compounds. The Jing’an district in central Shanghai said that even those in

In fact,
The relaxation of Visitors wearing face masks take photos at the Hong Kong Disneyland. > AP Photo/Kin Cheung measures before Hong Kong has reached zero COVID-19 cases marks a shift from the city’s earlier strategy, which was prevention areas, the least restrictive zone, would no longer be able to venture into the surrounding neighborhood. In Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese region, attractions such as Ocean Park and M+ museum reopened last Thursday. Gyms, beauty aligned to mainland China’s zerotolerance for any outbreaks. Since Christmas, we haven’t been back here, my daughter’s really happy, she’s been waiting so long. Joyce Mak 36-year-old mother visiting the park salons and massage parlors were also allowed to resume business. Customers must have at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and scan a QR code upon entry for contact-tracing purposes. Restaurants, which had been barred from providing dine-in service after 6 p.m., can reopen in the evening, although each table is capped at four guests. Hong Kong reported 603 locally spread infections last Thursday, down more than 99% from the peak of more than 30,000 in March.