A US airliner headed from Miami, Florida, to London turned around on Thursday because a passenger refused to wear a Covid-19 mask, the airline said.
“American Airlines Flight 38 with service from Miami to London returned to MIA [Miami International Airport] due to a disruptive customer refusing to comply with the federal mask requirement,” American Airlines said.
Flight 38 was about 90 minutes into its journey when it turned around, CBS Miami reported.
Police were waiting when the Boeing 777 carrying 129 passengers and a crew of 14 landed back in Miami.
The first-class passenger “was extremely abusive to the stewards”, fellow first-class passenger Steve Freeman told Florida news outlet Local 10.
Mr Freeman said flight attendants offered the woman several different masks to wear, but she complained about each one.
When the aircraft landed, US police escorted that passenger off the plane without incident, a police official told CNN.
American Airlines said that pending further investigation the passenger has been placed on a list of people banned from flying with the airline.
The US Federal Aviation Administration said in January 2021 it would observe a zero-tolerance policy towards people who reject federal rules mandating mask-wearing on US domestic flights.
This came as flight attendants reported a high number of incidents of verbal and physical abuse from passengers who refuse to wear a mask.
The FAA filed 5,981 unruly passenger reports last year. Of those, 4,290 were mask related. This year, the FAA has already recorded 151 reports of unruly passengers – 92 of which are related to face masks.
US President Joe Biden in December extended the federal mask mandate for travel through mid-March.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
