Fly business class to London for 50% less

La Compagnie will launch its New York to London service in April for around $2,200 return.

That's at least half the price of a business ticket with major carriers like American Airlines (AAL) and Air France (AFRAF). La Compagnie already flies from Newark to Paris.

The company says it's able to offer cheap flights by keeping costs down. The firm's headquarters are on the outskirts of Paris, saving on high inner city rents. It also keeps staff numbers low: there are just three cabin crew for each flight, which carry up to 74 passengers.

The airline operates Boeing (BA) 757-200s, a mid-size jetliner also used by Delta Airlines (DAL) and United Airlines. The planes are fitted with flatbeds and individual Samsung (SSNLF) Galaxy tablets to keep passengers entertained. It will run four flights a week to London initially, rising to six by June.

Despite the attractive fares, La Compagnie will have a tough time taking on the big players.

Related: U.S. airlines eager to fly to Cuba

Other upstarts have tried to grab a slice of the lucrative transatlantic business travel market before. Three all-business operators -- Eos Airlines, MAXjet and Sliverjet -- had all collapsed by 2008. A fourth, L'Avion was sold to British Airways.

Waning demand in the lead up to the financial crisis, as well as rising jet fuel prices, contributed to those failures, but analysts say the business model remains challenging.

Major airlines do bulk deals for corporate travel and La Compagnie will have a hard time competing, said Liberum analyst Gerald Khoo.

The key to success with corporate travelers is "network and frequency," he said. Time, rather than price, is often more important for them -- and British Airways alone has more transatlantic flights in one day than La Compagnie will offer per week.

"I think they will struggle," Khoo said, "The [major carriers] have an entrenched advantage of broader route networks and frequency. It's not insurmountable, but still very difficult."

Related: Why India has the cheapest flights on earth

CNNMoney (London) February 4, 2015: 9:56 AM ET

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How the oil boom changed the face of small-town North Dakota

In oil towns like Williston and Watford City, massive amounts of infrastructure have been built in just the last three years. Here's a look at some of the bigger projects:

People: Populations in once-small towns soared as people from around the country (and the world) migrated to the area for jobs. Williston Mayor Howard Klug says that the city of under 15,000 in the 2010 census now has a "serviceable population of 60,000 to 70,000."

Housing: To keep up with the growing population, thousands of housing units have been added. According to Williston Economic Development, housing stock, both single and multi-family, has increased by nearly 60% in three years.

New housing developments are everywhere in Williston. Click the photo above to see more from Williston.

Expansion in Watford City has been even more dramatic. According to Mayor Brent Sanford, housing units have exploded from 500 in 2011 to 2,500 today. 'And despite slowing oil production in the area due to low oil prices, he says it's still not enough: "We're thousands of housing units behind where we need to be. And all you have to do to see the evidence of that is drive around and look at all the campers. You shouldn't be living in RVs in this country."

Hotels: Back in 2011, Blake and I had to stay in an RV because there were no vacant hotel rooms. Oil companies rent out rooms en-masse for their workers, who often are in town for only two weeks at a time before heading home for a week off.

But since then, numerous hotels have popped up in the area. When booking travel this year, we passed on a room at the Hampton Inn and Suites in Williston for $269 a night. There are currently 23 hotels listed on the Williston Convention and Visitors Bureau website, and that doesn't include the new Ramada we stayed in.

Related: Oil boomtown: 'We could see 20,000 layoffs by June'

Roads: Thousands of trucks are needed to haul oil, water and other fracking components. That's a lot of wear and tear on the roads. To combat the traffic, the state approved $1.16 billion dollars for highway investments from 2013 to 2015 according to the Department of Transportation. That includes a number of major highway bypass projects so that trucks don't have to roll through Main Street in these small towns. Passing lanes were also added to US Highway 85, which will be upgraded to a four lane highway, scheduled for completion in 2016.

Flights: There were no commercial flights to Williston back in 2011. Blake and I flew into Bismark and drove about 4 hours. But now Delta has 8 flights a day between Minneapolis and Williston. And United flies routes from Denver and Houston. All together, there are up to 900 seats in or out of Williston every day.

Related: Sex, drugs and murder in oil country

Work and play: A big part of all this building is to improve the quality of life in western North Dakota. So a number of major facilities have opened in recent years to do just that. A new 60,000 square foot medical and professional office building opened in Williston, along with a new shopping center. Watford City cut the ribbon on a huge day care center with capacity for almost 200 children. And Williston opened a 254,000 square foot recreational center, with indoor courts, fields, and a swimming pool at a cost of $76 million.

Basketball courts are just one of the many amenities at the new 254,000 square foot, $76 million recreational center in Williston.

CNNMoney (New York) February 4, 2015: 10:06 AM ET

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These drones have a higher calling

The Waterfly drone project uses swarms of drones to monitor and test water pollution levels.

They are using cameras to monitor the water quality from high above, looking for aberrations like a bright teal bloom of cyanobacteria, which can produce dangerous noxious toxins. When the swarm detects something, a single drone -- 30 inches wide and four pounds -- will break formation, dip down to the water's surface and scoop up a sample.

The project, called Waterfly, was created by a team of MIT researchers who believe swarms of drones -- flying and working together like insects -- are the future.

"Some drones look at the big picture, others perform in-depth sampling, and the swarming system becomes much more efficient than if it were composed of one or more individual drones," said professor Carlo Ratti, who worked on the project with MIT's Senseable City Lab and the University of Toronto's Dynamic Systems Lab.

Waterfly is one of 19 semifinalists competing in a "Drones for Good" competition this week. Part of the United Arab Emirates' third annual Government Summit, the winner will go home with $1 million to continue working on their project.

Related: Drone startups swoop up millions

The contest is an attempt to change negative public perception of the technology. Drones are most prominently armed and used in combat. And their use by governments, companies and amateurs raises a host of thorny privacy and civil liberties issues.

"The aim of the Drones for Good competition is to find positive ways to use drones to improve the lives of people around the world," said Saif Al Aleeli, the project manager for Drones for Good who works for the UAE government. "Using this remarkable technology for civilian purposes fits with [the event's] broader goal of driving global development through new innovations."

More than 800 teams from around the world submitted do-gooder drone concepts to the competition. The semifinalists include unmanned flying vehicles that move human organs for transplants, assist with urban planning in slums and plant seeds for crops. One entry is designed to to monitor parklands to spot poachers and fire risks. Emergency response is a commonly touted positive use case, and one of the semifinalists would deliver goods like medicine, food and temporary shelters to those who are stranded.

Related: Alibaba is using drones to deliver tea

This weekend, all 19 teams will do a live demonstration of their prototype drone projects in front of a panel of expert judges and some members of the public. The winner will be announced on Feb. 7.

The MIT team is packing up five of its custom-made drones to take to Dubai for the demo. The modified carbon fiber airframes help them navigate extreme environments and make water landings without sinking. They've also created special software for communicating with the drones and having them coordinate with one another in real time.

"I think that drones that will operate collaboratively will be the norm -- not the exception -- in the future," said Ratti.

CNNMoney (New York) February 4, 2015: 10:14 AM ET

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New York Times ad problem - bad to worse

The New York Times continues to suffer

Overall, ad revenue dropped 2.1% in the last three months of 2014. The main culprit was a big dive in advertising in print, which fell 9.2%. Digital showed a healthy gain (19.3%), but it wasn't enough.

The company said to expect another decline this quarter.

Print advertising still accounts for the lion's share of the Times' ad business.

In this challenging media economy, outlets both new and old have turned to traditionally unconventional methods to make up for the advertising shortfall. The Times is no different.

Last month, Dean Baquet, the newspaper's executive editor, said in a memo that he's been working more closely with advertising salespeople and suggested that the Times could trot out a regular ad-sponsored feature -- practices that have been resisted by many old school journalists.

Related: Times editor promises to 'fix the things the buyouts broke'

"This is tricky territory, but some of the best news organizations in the world have already navigated it," Baquet said.

Baquet also used the memo to reiterate his commitment to the Times' digital initiatives, and on Tuesday, the company announced some gains on that front.

Revenue from digital-only subscriptions went up by 13.6% in the fourth quarter, with the number of digital-only subscribers eclipsing 900,000 by the end of the quarter.

Between that increase in digital subscribers and a jump in home-delivery prices, the company said it "more than offset a decline in print copies sold."

It's too early to say what Wednesday's report will do to the company's stock. The stock suffered a serious blow in October after the company braced investors for another fall in ad spending.

CNNMoney (New York) February 3, 2015: 10:00 AM ET

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Silk Road founder's parents speak out

Ulbricht, 30, is accused of everything from money laundering to drug trafficking. Launched in 2011, Silk Road was an unregulated online marketplace where users could buy and sell anything from drugs to hacking tutorials. Payments were made using bitcoin, a digital currency that's difficult to trace, and the site used software that let users browse anonymously.

Over the past weeks, prosecutors have said Ulbricht was the mastermind behind the site. According to the feds, he went by the name Dread Pirate Roberts, a reference to a character in the movie The Princess Bride. They say they've traced around $13 million in bitcoin to Ross's computer.

Ulbricht's attorney Josh Dratel argued that while Ulbricht created Silk Road, it became too much for him and he handed it off to another operator. In court, the defense pointed fingers at former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles. The testimony was later ruled inadmissible by the judge, who called it "hearsay," according to Wired.

In an exclusive interview, Ulbricht's parents, Lyn and Kirk, sit down with CNNMoney. Despite the government's case against Ulbricht, his parents maintain their son's innocence.

CNNMoney: Lyn, can you take me to that moment when you got the call? Ross was in trouble. What went through your mind?

Lyn: It was shocking because Ross had never been in trouble and has no record of anything.

Kirk: It was like a bomb went off in the house. We had no idea anything like that was coming.

CNNMoney: Tell me about the Ross you know.

Lyn: Ross is a stellar human being. He is such a fine person -- friendly, compassionate, caring -- and has demonstrated that his whole life. In the prison he gave yoga classes, he gave physics classes. We had a guard take us aside and go, "I just want you to know how much I think of Ross. He's such a great person."

CNNMoney: As his parents, why do you think he created Silk Road?

Lyn: He's very idealistic and I could see Ross thinking, "I want to create an open market where people can freely trade." Ross was the perfect fall guy because he's very trusting.

CNNMoney: The prosecution has traced a lot of money back to Ross. What do you think Ross's role was?

Lyn: I have no idea. I would like to see the evidence. We want to bring our own bitcoin expert in and they are fighting us ... we can't speculate on anything.

Related: Alleged Silk Road kingpin gets day in court

CNNMoney: Let's get into the trial. Part of why you want to speak out is you're frustrated.

Lyn: The most frustrating thing is that evidence that is favorable to Ross is being suppressed. This came out in the cross examination for the first witness -- DHS Agent Jared Der-Yeghiayan, who was on the Silk Road case for two years investigating it. [He] never came across Ross' name but did ... pinpoint another name which he said was Mark Karpeles. He was closing in on [Karpeles] when another DHS agency [inadvertently] tipped off Karpeles.

The next thing that happened, according to this evidence, is that Karpeles' lawyer approached this DHS agency and said look, "You don't charge me with the financial crimes you're charging me with and I'll give you the name of DPR [Dread Pirate Roberts]." Two weeks later, Ross was arrested and Karpeles has never been charged.

[The judge later ruled] that much of that testimony must be stricken from the record.

Related: The Deep Web you don't know about

CNNMoney: What do you believe are the larger implications of this trial?

Lyn: You know there is a big issue of transferred intent here, which is, can you hold an alleged website host responsible for actions of the users on his site? If a precedent is set for that, many people have said it puts a crack in the door for the government to find something illegitimate on a site and be able to hold that website responsible for that. That will put a chill on the Internet.

CNNMoney: Who should be responsible? Because if you look at Silk Road, there was a lot of illicit activity going on.

Lyn: We can't comment on that.

CNNMoney: Is it possible there's a whole other side to Ross that you guys just didn't know?

Lyn: I think in 30 years, there would have been a glimmer among either us, his family, all his friends and everyone who knew him. It just isn't logical ... this drug kingpin thing. The guy was living in a very simple apartment, living a very simple life. So many things don't add up.

Kirk: I feel like I know Ross as well as a father can know a son. We were very close. We've heard how many chat logs and conversations between DPR and these other people. DPR didn't talk like Ross or write like Ross. It's just not Ross.

CNNMoney: How are you guys doing?

Lyn: It's very hard. Ross does not belong in prison. We will do what we can to fight for him and to fight for a fair trial. That's our basic right. Ross is a precious person. He has a lot to give and it would be a horrible waste to have him rot in prison. It really would.

CNNMoney (New York) February 3, 2015: 10:02 AM ET

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OPEC leader: Oil could shoot back to $200

Not only that, but he sees a real possibility that oil prices could explode higher to upwards of $200 per barrel in the future. He's far from the only one that sees a return of triple-digit oil prices.

Finding a bottom: According to recent comments by the Secretary-General when he was in London, the oil market doesn't need to look for oil prices to bottom as the market has already bottomed. Instead, he offered quite bullish comments by saying, "Now the prices are around $45-$55, and I think maybe they [have] reached the bottom and we [will] see some rebound very soon."

Normally that type of remark would be just another layer of noise, but this is coming from OPEC's Secretary-General so it comes with a lot of weight behind it.

Related: Apple stock is at a new high -- 3 reasons not to sell

That said, he's not saying that OPEC will come in and rescue the oil market by reversing its previous decision to hold steady on production. Instead, he sees the signs that the oil market is self-correcting as oil companies have made deep cuts to spending, which will eventually lead to lower production growth.

Further, the rig count in the U.S. is plunging, which is usually a key to a bottom in oil prices. However, in the midst of cutting back as the industry works through the current oversupply the Secretary-General is now warning that the industry is putting future oil supplies at risk by under investing today.

Underinvestment leads to a shortage: The Secretary-General said that, "if you don't invest in oil and gas, you will see more than $200" when it comes to future oil prices. While he didn't give a time frame, he did note the correlation between investment and future production.

Related: 3 Bold Bets for Tesla in 2015

This is because oil production naturally declines and oil companies need to invest in new production to not only replace this decline in production from legacy oil fields but to add new production to meet growing demand. However, oil companies are reluctant to invest in new production as their cash flows decline.

Over time this could become a problem as oil fields around the world naturally decline by an average of about 5% per year. As we see in this chart from a Chevron Corporation (CVX) investor presentation, in order to overcome this decline oil companies need to develop about 200 billion barrels of oil supplies over the next decade and a half just to meet demand.

These supplies will require the industry to invest $7-$10 trillion. However, with the big capital budget reductions oil companies have announced this year it could make it harder for the industry to meet future supply needs. In fact, the industry might defer up to $150 billion oil projects this year due to the collapse in crude prices. Many of these investments, however, wouldn't have yielded actual production for a couple of years due to the long lead time of major projects.

Related: Solar Stocks Could Be in For a Big Year in 2015

As an example, Chevron delivered first oil on two of its Gulf of Mexico projects late last year after beginning construction on the fields in 2011. Meanwhile, another $6 billion project it just sanctioned at the end of last year won't produce any oil until 2018. It's these long lead time projects that are being delayed, which is setting the world up for higher oil prices in the future as an under investment today has the potential to lead to a constriction in future supplies.

Investor takeaway: OPEC's Secretary-General is calling the bottom in oil prices. While he's not the first to call a bottom, he does lead the organization that currently controls the oil market so his comments do have a lot of weight.

Further, he's also suggesting that the cuts that oil companies are making could have a dramatic impact on future oil prices as the under investment has the potential to cause oil prices to rocket higher if demand grows faster than future supplies. That, however, would all be part of OPEC's plan as it purposely pushed for lower oil prices now so it could control market share once oil prices surged in the future. It's willing to endure short-term pain for the potential of a big long-term gain.

Matt DiLallo has no position in any stocks mentioned, though he is bullish on oil prices in the future. The Motley Fool recommends Chevron.

Related: Social Security: 3 Things to Know Before Taking Benefits Early

(New York) February 3, 2015: 10:14 AM ET

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Half of Super Bowl ads had hashtags

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The number of hashtags used was actually down from a record 57% of last year's Super Bowl ads, according to Marketing Land. A total of 16 commercials included website addresses but no hashtags, and nine included both URLs and hashtags.

Specific social networks weren't called out too often: Facebook (FB, Tech30) got just four mentions, and Twitter (TWTR, Tech30) was included three times. But Snapchat got its first Super Bowl mention this year, as part of the advertisement for the Rebel Wilson comedy "Pitch Perfect 2." (Universal Studios cleverly asked Snapchatters to post snaps with the phrase "PitchPerfect2").

And one hashtag backfired horribly.

Nationwide's controversial commercial -- in which a boy declares that he missed out on his childhood because he died in an accident -- used the hashtag #MakeSafeHappen.

People took to social networks using the hashtag to ridicule the insurance company and its total downer of a message.

"Try as you may, you can't #makesafehappen. You can #makeparanoiahappen though," tweeted @annsattley.

"Preventable ads are the #1 cause of death among our multi-year ad contracts. #MakeSafeHappen," tweeted Sean Davis, chief operating officer at Media Trackers.

Related: Super Bowl advertisers 'are on trial'

People on social media were much kinder to the other 24 brands that decided to include hashtags in their ads.

Toyota: #OneBoldChoice

BMW: #HelloFuture

Snickers: #EatASnickers

Skittles: #SettleIt

Lexus: #LexusNX

T-Mobile: #Uncarrier, #KimsDataStash

Budweiser: #BestBuds

Coca-Cola: #MakeItHappy

Avocados From Mexico: #FirstDraftEver

Dove Care+Men: #RealStrength

Doritos: #Doritos

Nissan: #WithDad

Nationwide: #MakeSafeHappen

Esurance: #sorta

Fiat Chrysler: #500X

GoDaddy: #GoDaddy

Microsoft: #empowering

Always: #likeagirl

Lexus: #LexusRC

Mophie: #staypowerful

Loctite: #winatglue

Bud Light: #upforanything

Mercedes: #TheBigRace

Wix.com: #ItsThatEasy

Related: These Super Bowl ads made this Dad cry

First Published: February 2, 2015: 7:56 AM ET

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