decade. new home construction fell sharply and more than expected in may, the first month after a home buyer tax credit expired. housing starts down 10% from april. and building permits declined 5.9%. american consumers are slightly more satisfied this spring, believe it or not, for the second year in a row, satisfied with products and services they received from top airline, hotel, restaurant and express delivery companies. that report found consumers were happier in large part, t.j., because they re finding better prices and better deals. strong i m profitments for burger king, qfc, hyatt. big drop though for delta air lines, mcdoncdonald s and the pl office. employees health insurance, expect another steep jump in your medical costs. more will ask workers to share a bigger chunk of those expenses. a more of that coming up on
was, quote, no act on the flights. and one airline spokeswoman declares europe s air space is safe, except for the area near iceland. only about 5,000 european flights took off today, which means about 20,000 flights were canceled. and the airlines are getting impatient. late today, top airline and airport industry groups called for an immediate reassessment of the flight restrictions, which are costing an estimate $200 million a day. now, earlier tonight, i spoke with airline safety expert john wiley, who flew commercial jets for 27 years. he says volcanic ash is one of the worst hazards imaginable for a plane engine, even if the engines don t fail, the damage, severe. as a pilot, i operate on what s called acceptable risk. i am not going to go into unacceptable risk. and that is the possibility of losing the aircraft, millions of dollars, losing passengers, fatalities, which are going to be very, very costly, and even, if i complete the mission and i wind up encountering one of
matter of hours. a european union commissioner says if the ash cloud continues to move, and that s a big if, almost half of the air space would be risk free tomorrow, they think. meantime, test flights were airborne today across europe. there were no passengers aboard. they were just tests at this point. but an e.u. official says there was, quote, no impact on the flight, and one airline spokesperson declares europe s air space is safe except for the area near iceland. like passengers left waiting at empty gates, safety officials are standing firm. more than 20,000 sunday flights have been canceled, and the airlines are getting impatient. late today, top airline and airport industry groups called for an immediate reassessment of flight restrictions which are costing an estimated $200 million a day. are these restrictions going too far? in a few minutes i ll ask a veteran pilot and safety expert. iceland s volcano shows few signs of letting up at this point. more smoke and ash billowing