Embraer, the Brazilian jet maker, cut a deal with American carrier Republic Airways to sell that company sixteen E-170 jetliners for $400 million. The contract could exceed $1.5 billion if the airline decided to buy 34 additional planes later on, Embraer informed in a press release.

Mexico´s leisure industry snapped up nearly $9.7 billion from January through November last year, $300,000 more than that same period of time in 2003. The country´s Tourism Department informed that figure accounts for a 14 percent increase from the year before. Mexican tourism authorities closed the twelve-month period with flying colors: 20.5 million visitors and $10.6 billion worth of gains.

The arrival of foreign tourists to Brazil all through 2004 brought as man as $3.2 billion worth of profits, up a whopping 30 percent from the volume of gains reaped in 2003. According to a report issued by the Central Bank, the face value of that hard-currency heap could be even bigger because the assessment is limited to banking operations at official exchange rates and purchases of international credit cards.

After triggering a war among airlines over discount fares, Delta has reported staggering losses for fourth-quarter and full-year 2004 at times when the industry continues to adjust to the new fare structure it unleashed on the market earlier this month. Delta lost $2.2 billion in the fourth quarter alone and $5.2 billion for the year, possibly the largest lost ever posted by an airline. That´s even worse than the $3.5 billion loss posted by American in 2002.

Buy Bonus LTD, a London-based firm, announced it intends to pour some $100 million into a tourist compound in the province of Samana, some 142 miles northeast of Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital. The group´s execs pointed out this will be a 1,000-room hotel compound exclusively designed for couples that will cover nearly 99 acres of land.

The Mexican travel industry snared 9,679,000 million foreign visitors in 2004, some 220,000 more tourists than the previous year for a solid 14 percent increase. In a case-by-case breakdown made by the country´s Tourism Department, ground border checkpoints logged little more than 8 million foreign trippers, up 9.4 percent from 2003, while 10.2 million nationals drove in and out of Mexico in the course of the entire year for an 11.2 percent upturn.