Links to Memphis

Travel

Airport fares No. 8 most expensive

From The Wall Street Journal's blog The Middle Seat:

A new analysis of average fares at U.S. airports by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics confirms what travelers have long known: Memphis International Airport is expensive. Memphis, the No. 65 airport, ranked No. 8 for an average fare of $453.73. Its peers in the top 10 of the BTS rankings fall into one of two categories:

Overall, the 10 most-expensive airports for air travel include six "fortress" hubs dominated by one airline and four small cities without much fare competition. Among the top 10, three are United-Continental hubs: Houston's Bush Intercontinental, Newark's Liberty and Washington's Dulles airports. Two Delta Air Lines hubs also make the top 10: Cincinnati and Memphis, Tenn.

Southwest Airlines' recent deal to purchase AirTran, giving Southwest a toehold at Memphis, could help matters:

"There's no getting around the fact that competition from a low-cost carrier continues to be a major factor in reducing fares," said Bob Hazel, an airport expert at consulting firm Oliver Wyman.

Of course, as the WSJ post points out, loyalty programs and premium seats allow the major carriers to resist price pressure from their low-cost rivals.

Flashback

'Two Dirtiest FBI Reports Ever'

Thank the stars for the Freedom of Information Act: The Smoking Gun dug deep into the annals of law enforcement last week to present the salacious headline "Behold the Two Dirtiest FBI Reports Ever" reports, which were taken in 1975 in Memphis.

Agents - whose names were the only things redacted from the documents - were dispatched to the Lamar Theatre on two separate occasions to view X-rated movies to apparently determine whether the films were obscene.

A pair of G-Men paid $3 apiece to watch a double feature of "Two into Two" and "The Magic Mirror." With seven other cinema fans in attendance, the agents took careful notes about what was unspooling. Their subsequent report includes a scene-by-scene recitation of the films, which seemed to be short on plot, but action-packed.

In the early 1970s, Memphis was ground zero of the FBI's vigorous and, from today's standpoint, seemingly inconceivable investigation of the adult film industry, particularly the 1972 X-rated classic "Deep Throat," namesake of FBI deputy W. Mark Felt in his role as the shadowy Watergate informant. Details of the investigation came out in 2009 in response to a FOIA request by AP after the death of "Deep Throat" director Gerard Damiano.

Business

Archer>malmo called nice place to work

Memphis ad agency archer>malmo was rated No. 9 on a list of "Best Places to Work in Media & Marketing," compiled by Advertising Age.

The Memphis-based diversified marketing-services agency has 100 employees and works in digital, PR, experiential and direct response with a 60/40 mix of consumer and business-to-business clients that include Palm Beach Tan salons, Grizzly smokeless tobacco, Hilton Hotels, Gold's Gym's Gold's Express unit, agricultural chemical marketer Valent U.S.A. and Norfolk Southern Railroad.

CEO Russ Williams pointed out specific aspects of archer>malmo's culture that make it a pleasant place to work:

Culturally, he said, the agency is a "low-ego environment" that tries not to take itself or its business too seriously.

All that is backed verbatim by employees in Advertising Age's survey, which also included a comment from one employee that the agency had "the most reasonable workload of any agency I've ever worked for."

Links to Memphis is compiled by Mark Richens, who blogs at linkstomemphis.com.

News researchers Rosemary Nelms and Jan Smith contributed. Follow their daily news links on Twitter: @calibrary.