EuroWire November 2016

Transatlantic cable

The plane landed in Santa Clara – about 175 miles east of Havana, the Cuban capital – around 11am, the rst ight under new USA rules that loosened travel restrictions after the resumption of diplomatic ties in December 2014. This May, a USA cruise ship docked in Havana for the rst time since President Barack Obama launched an e ort to normalise US relations with the island nation 90 miles o shore Florida. According to the New York Times , six American carriers have been approved for commercial air service to nine Cuban cities. The commuter line Silver Airways was next up, after JetBlue, with its initial Cuban ight set for 1 st September. American Airlines was to follow suit the following week. (“Scheduled Flights to Cuba From US Begin Again, NowWith Jet Engines,” 31 st August) Earlier reports indicated that the USA cities of origination for Cuba ights would be Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Houston; Los Angeles; Newark, New Jersey; and New York; plus four in Florida – Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Tampa. Of the 20 daily non-stop ights slated for Havana, 14 will leave from Florida, home to the largest population of Cuban-Americans. † Together with hundreds of thousands of Cuban-Americans, who have been able to travel to Cuba without restriction since 2009, nearly 160,000 USA leisure travellers ew there last year. Previously, expensive and time-consuming charter ights provided their sole recourse. But the Times reported that Americans who qualify for travel to Cuba under the approved 12 categories (eg family visits, o cial business, and educational or religious activities) can now book ights on an airline’s website, and many have paid fares as low as $99 each way. † Conservatives in Congress have been unwilling to lift the trade embargo of Cuba, which includes a travel ban. That means that most Americans still cannot legally visit Cuba. But, with the easing of the rules, enterprising travellers are free to design their own “people-to-people” cultural exchange tours with little oversight. A 2013 Boston Federal Reserve study showed that New England had the lowest retention rate of college graduates of the entire USA, with only about 63 per cent of the class of 2008 still in Massachusetts a year after earning their diplomas. A Boston-area resident, Tom Emswiler, saw a direct connection between this statistic and the restiveness he had noted among young people in a city that goes dark about three hours after lunch. As reported by Tom Moroney and Anne Mostue of Bloomberg News , of all the major cities on America’s eastern seaboard, none is as far north and east as Boston, where the sun sets really early in winter. On 9 th December last year, sunset in Boston was at 4.11pm, only 22 minutes later than in the Yukon. Mr Emswiler’s insight, developed at some length in a Boston Globe op-ed, found a receptive reader in Massachusetts Governor Charles Baker, who recently signed a bill ordering a feasibility study of moving his 10,555-square-mile state into a time zone that would brighten the end of the day in the months during which the Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the sun. Carpe diem Massachusetts looks into an unusual suggestion for retaining its best and brightest: extend the hours of daylight

With a CAGR of close to 4 per cent for the forecast period, the market for valves and pumps is expected to grow at the fastest rate – the demand supported by hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), chemical, nuclear, desalination and waste-disposal applications. In terms of geography, Asia-Paci c (APAC) is the largest and fastest-growing steel casting market and China the dominant player. The market is driven by the automotive and construction sectors, with the Chinese construction market expected to grow at a CAGR of over 12 per cent (to $2.5 trillion) during the forecast period. According to Chandrakumar Badala Jaganathan, a lead analyst at Technavio for metals and minerals research, the primary demand driver for industrial castings in the APAC region is the rapid increase in industrialisation and development in China, India and South Korea. Ongoing urbanisation in India is a notable factor, with the Indian government investing heavily in infrastructure and thus boosting demand for steel castings. As noted by Technavio, Indian steel companies “have been investing massively over the last seven years” to increase steel capacity. The growth rate of steel consumption in India is projected at seven to nine per cent to 2020. Even as the steel castings market grows in size, the product grows in sophistication. By pinpointing the location of internal defects, Dr Jaganathan said simulation-based casting technique optimises casting design and method. In allowing visualisation of the casting processes (mould lling, cooling, solidi cation), it saves time for manufacturers while enabling them to more reliably satisfy critical dimension, size and weight requirements. Elsewhere in steel . . . † A news story from Minnesota may call into question the increasingly popular choice of stainless steel for residential gas lines. According to Christopher Dean, the re chief of Muskegon Heights, the stainless steel gas line in a recently renovated house contributed to a re on 29 th August. As reported by Lynn Moore on mlive.com (2 nd September), Mr Dean said that the coating on electrical wires melted in an earlier, unrelated, re in the structure. The wires grounded out on the stainless steel tubing, causing it to overheat and ignite oorboards and other building material. Both res were extinguished quickly.

Milestones

A historic rst: a scheduled passenger jet ight from the USA to Cuba

Shortly after 10am on 31 st August, JetBlue Flight 387 took o from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, en route to Cuba. As noted by Jen Kirby of New York Magazine , this was the rst scheduled USA commercial ight to depart for Cuba since 1961, when airlines were still operating propeller planes. The 150-strong payload of Flight 387 included US Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and Frank Barreras, the JetBlue pilot and son of Cuban immigrants. CBS News reported that Mr Barreras’s father ed Cuba on one of the last USA-bound commercial ights before the rupture between the two Cold War foes ended that connection for a half-century and more.

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November 2016