Business news with words air+lead. 16 news.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Delta Air Lines and ExpressJet Holdings saw their shares rise 2.1% and 3.6%, respectively, to pace a broad advance in the airline sector on the last trading day of the year. The Amex Airline Index added almost 1% to 34.69 points on Monday even as crude advanced toward $97 a barrel. Frontier Airlines , Mesa Air Group and JetBlue Airways were the only decliners among the 14 components in the benchmark index.

Italy's decision to let Air France enter exclusive talks with Alitalia may lead to creating a behemoth that could alter Europe's aviation industry.

BLUE chips led the market in Shanghai lower in the morning session today. The Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks yuan-denominated A shares and hard-currency B shares, fell 0.60 percent, or 33.08 points, to 5,170.19 at 11:30am today. Winners in the Shanghai market outnumbered losers 414 to 334 and 98 were unchanged. But the Shenzhen Composite Index, which covers the smaller mainland stock market, gained 0.30 percent, or 10.23 points, to 1,413.97. Airlines, banks and developers were among the worst performing sectors this morning. Air China, the world's biggest airline by market value, lost 2.70 percent, or 0.72 yuan (10 US cents), to 25.98 yuan while China Eastern, the nation's third-largest carrier, shed 2.04 percent, or 0.39 yuan, to 18.71 yuan. China Vanke, the nation's biggest listed property developer, declined 1.51 percent, or 0.42 yuan, to 27.40 yuan. Gemdale Corp, a Chinese developer allied with ING Groep NV, dropped 1.89 percent, or 0.73 yuan, to 37.85 yuan.

RALEIGH, N.C. - Red Hat Inc. tapped former Delta Air Lines Inc. executive James Whitehurst to lead the company into a new phase of growth, as the open source provider said Thursday its third-quarter earnings rose 12 percent.

AP - Red Hat Inc. tapped former Delta Air Lines Inc. executive James Whitehurst to lead the company into a new phase of growth, as the open source provider said Thursday its third-quarter earnings rose 12 percent.

The Italian government is concerned that domestic hostility could lead Air France-KLM to withdraw its bid for Alitalia, leaving the lossmaking Italian flag carrier one step closer to bankruptcy

Europe's third largest low-cost airline says difficulties integrating the German carrier would lead to a 'low double-digit' million euro charge nine months after the deal

If you think it's been cold so far, just wait. Evidence mounts that truly wintry air is to hit next week. It would arrive in the midst of December's opening week--historically a volatile weather period in Chicago. The chill would lead to Chicago's third consecutive December open in the midst of frigid arctic air. And, snow may be part of the picture as well. While not yet carved in stone, a disturbance could reach Chicago this weekend--a coalescence of energy diving southeast into the Plains from the Pacific Northwest and energy lifting across the Southwest from a disturbance off California. If the system taps Gulf moisture, it could become a moderate snowmaker.

The air smells acrid from squat gas burners that sit outside homes, melting wires to recover copper and cooking computer motherboards to release gold. Migrant workers in filthy clothing smash picture tubes by hand to recover glass and electronic parts, releasing as much as 6.5 pounds of lead dust.

Benazir Bhutto launches herself into opposition against General Pervez Musharraf--and is arrested INVITING unhappy comparisons with Mahatma Gandhi and Mao Zedong, Benazir Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), was foiled in a plan to lead a "long march" on November 13th. The march--in fact, a 270km (170-mile) drive from Lahore to Islamabad--had been called to protest against the imposition of martial law by General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, on November 3rd. Hours before it was to start, Miss Bhutto was put under house arrest for a week. A few brave PPP supporters hit the road. In holding a political gathering, they defied the rules of General Musharraf's coup. Inaccurately, he has described this as constituting a state of emergency. In fact, the general has done away with the constitution altogether. He has also arrested at least 2,500 political activists, human-rights workers and lawyers. Private television news channels have been taken off the air; critics of the president and army now face three-year prison terms.

How to halt light and bottle it A FUNDAMENTAL law of physics says that nothing can go faster than light, which zips along at around 300m metres a second. But light can also travel at a more leisurely pace, slowed, for example, by air or water. This week a group of researchers led by Ortwin Hess of the University of Surrey, in England, announced a plan to stop light completely and store it, using materials that possess some odd properties. If the plan works, halting and hoarding light in this way could eventually lead to better computers. The odd property on which Dr Hess's plan rests is called negative refraction. When a ray of light encounters a boundary, such as that between air and water, its speed changes; so does its angle of travel. This is why an object at the bottom of a pool seems to be closer to the surface than it truly is. The ratio between the speed of light in a vacuum and that in a material is known as the material's refractive index. Natural materials all have a positive refractive index. But what if a material could be built that had a negative refractive index, so that light was bent in the opposite direction and an object appeared to be farther from the surface than it really was?

AIRBUS SAS, the world's biggest plane maker, said yesterday it may deliver more than 450 planes this year. This will set a record and help it extend a four-year lead over rival Boeing Co, Bloomberg News reported. Airbus will have a backlog of more than 3,000 orders by the end of this week, equal to five or six years' of work, Chief Executive Officer Tom Enders said at the Dubai Air Show. The Toulouse, France-based company previously forecast 440-450 deliveries. Boeing expects to hand over 440 to 445 planes. The European plane maker, which this year delivered the A380, the world's biggest passenger aircraft after a delay of more than a year, has maintained its lead over Chicago-based Boeing by winning more orders in Asia and the Middle East.

In the latest example of what could lead to so-called "cable bypass," ESPN's NBA games this season will be simulcast live on the Web. It could, however, raise questions for subscribers: Why pay high ESPN fees if the programming is distributed elsewhere?

Oil is not the only commodity on a tear AS oil touched $88 a barrel on Tuesday October 16th, the temptation was to seek an explanation in geopolitical events. Many cited a potential incursion by Turkish soldiers into northern Iraq. Some believed gold's rise to a new 27-year high was driven by the same factor. But the commodities market is being affected by a lot more than just events in the Middle East. Raw materials prices are seeing widespread gains. Talk of a "supercycle" is in the air. As of October 15th, copper, lead, soyabeans, wheat, cotton, coffee, cocoa and cattle feed were all showing double-digit percentage gains on the year.

If you're displeased with the way a company treats you, you're free to air your feelings in public, right? Not necessarily if you receive high-speed Internet access from AT&T Inc. or Verizon Communications Inc.

Though Airbus briefly raced past Boeing's jet order tally with a big sales haul at the Paris Air Show in June, Boeing has again surged far...