Author Archives: Kartik Krishnaiyer
Southwest Airlines dipping toe into saturated south Florida – Costa Rica market (UPDATED)
Southwest Airlines will begin nonstop service from Fort Lauderdale to San Jose Costa Rica on November 5, 2017. Southwest will become the third airline to serve San Jose nonstop from Fort Lauderdale (along with JetBlue and Spirit) and the fourth from south Florida (American flies from Miami). Southwest will also begin Fort Lauderdale-Punta Cana service […]
Parents and educators urge Governor Scott to veto HB 7069
Republican legislative leaders particularly House Speaker Richard Corcoran won a major battle with the passage of HB 7069 in the legislative session’s dying moments on Monday May 8. Today educators and parents across the state urged that the Governor veto the legislation. Normally, there would be faint hope that Governor Rick Scott would veto such […]
Rick Scott falls victim to the legislature’s historic “seven year itch”
Florida’s legislature has a way of reinforcing checks and balances on second term “lame duck” governors. Governor Rick Scott experienced this session what Jeb Bush did in 2005 and Lawton Chiles did in 1997 – once you have no midterm election where you need to run with the Governor or a shift in priorities, the […]
JetBlue boosting Florida-Mexico services
JetBlue Airways is adding additional service from Fort Lauderdale and Orlando to Mexico City beginning September 6. Currently the airline serves both routes once a day but will be boosted to twice-daily. The additional flight from Fort Lauderdale will be served with a Airbus A 320 aircraft. JetBlue’s additional flight eases the void left when […]
Flashback Friday: The courage of post-Governorship Leroy Collins at Selma
Last year, I penned the afterward to Robert Buccellato’s excellent Florida History timepiece, Finding Dan McCarty focusing on the Governorship of Leroy Collins, who took the unfulfilled McCarty mantle and promise, and made Florida a modern state. I have in the past focused much my analysis on Collins’ views toward improving Florida’s business climate and had […]
What we are reading: Governor Scott’s veto options
A full column on these issues is coming, likely this weekend but for now the Tampa Bay Times outlines Governor Scott’s options to veto either the entire budget, portions of the budget or specific bills tied to funding that have arrived at his desk. My sense is that at this point Governor Scott cannot afford […]
Spirit Airlines labor issues threaten to derail airline’s progress
After a day of chaos that saw several flight cancellations and short tempers at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (Reuters report via Florida Trend) The South Florida Sun Sentinel reports that Spirit Airlines has obtained a court order against pilot-induced flight delays. Miramar-based Spirit Airlines has done much in the last 18 months to improve its record […]
How conservative was your state legislator in 2016?
The American Conservative Union (ACU) has kindly provided us with the scorecard they put together for Florida legislators after last session. Since voting records in the leiglsature are even less readily accessible and in circulation than congressional records, these scorecards prove invaluable whether done by conservative groups or liberal ones. Here is a link to […]
How conservative was your member of Congress in 2016?
As I have mentioned many times through the years on this site, a hobby of mine for over two decades has been to study interest group ratings based on the voting record of members of Congress. The American Conservative Union (ACU) who host the annual CPAC Conference has been rating Congress for 45 years since […]
The Gwen Graham electoral strategic paradox
Former Congresswoman Gwen Graham announced her candidacy for Governor this week in Miami-Dade County – the county of her birth, but a locale in an area of the state less representative of the diverse views that help make Florida a microcosm for the entire nation than the district she previously represented in Congress- though that […]
The Florida Squeeze 