American Eagle Airlines, the regional affiliate of American Airlines, last week celebrated the unveiling of its new location in the North Terminal of Miami International Airport (MIA). A state-of-the-art facility housing both American and American Eagle, the new terminal offers customers improved check-in and domestic baggage claim, with an array of shops and restaurants featuring the flavors of South Florida. American Eagle has completed the initial phase of its transition to new departure areas at gates D53, D55 and D60. "We are all excited about our American Eagle facility," said Peter J. Dolara, American's Senior Vice President based in Miami. "This facility will allow us to better serve our customers and solidify Miami as one of the premier gateways in the country."

The new departure lounge features two concourse-level gates with jetbridges for convenient boarding. When the next phase of construction is complete, lower-level gates will eliminate the need for most shuttle buses to take passengers to awaiting aircraft. A new Skytrain is expected to open in September that will whisk thousands of customers per hour along the 1.4 mile North Terminal concourse, enabling easy connections to American Airlines flights.

"We are excited to move into this beautiful new facility," said Pedro Fabregas, President of American Eagle's operations in Miami and the Caribbean. "The new terminal will not only offer our customers a much more comfortable and enjoyable travel experience, but will provide convenient connections to cities throughout the American Airlines global network."

The move comes just in time for American Eagle's enhanced winter schedule, offering increased daily flights to twelve cities, including two new daily nonstops to Gainesville, Fla. on October 1 and two daily nonstops to Cleveland, Ohio, beginning November 18.

American Eagle currently flies from Miami to more than 30 cities throughout the U.S. and Caribbean.

Today's release of the 2009-10 economic impact of cruise shipping in Australia shows the national Cruise industry continues to perform with strong growth, increasing by 11.9% over the previous year.

General Manager of Cruise Down Under, Jill Abel said "the findings reveal a positive growth trend for the cruise industry despite the extremely challenging global economic environment."

"The study revealed total expenditure by the international cruise shipping industry in Australia in 2009-10 was estimated at $816.2 million compared to $746.4 million in 2008-09," Abel said. "In addition this year, the report identifies the impact of domestic passengers and crew and this has contributed an additional $464.9 million taking the total figure to $1,281.1 million."

"The study undertaken by the AEC Group was commissioned by Cruise Down Under back in 2005 and now provides a six year robust analysis of the contributions to the Australian economy this growing industry has provided," Abel said.

Not all destinations recorded a growth in visits in 2009-10, mainly due to a greater spread around the country of cruise port visits. The outstanding growth areas have been Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland.

The cruise shipping industry’s growth trends in 2009-10 year are summarised as: – An increase in the number of ports recording a cruise ship visit from 28 to 30; – A decrease in visiting cruise ships from 38 to 34; – A decrease in cruise ship passenger capacity on these ships from 42,251 to 41,803; – A decrease in crew capacity on these ships from 19,758 to 18,335; – An increase in cruise ship visits to Australian ports from 521 to 583; – An increase in total passenger days at port from 891,967 to 1,072,239; – An increase in total crew days at port from 213,264 to 241,918; – An increase in total passenger expenditure from $223.0 million to $261.6 million; – An increase in total crew expenditure from $35.1 million to $39.0 million; and – An increase in total port-related expenditure from $310.2 million to $361.8 million.