Wednesday’s business headlines

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Here’s a look at Wednesday’s business headlines.

IU partnership

Indiana University has a new website to promote partnerships between business and academics.

The idea is to match IU’s research and skills with businesses.

Professors, researchers and students can take advantage of it.

The website is partnerships.iu.edu.

Truckers find business

Some truckers are thriving as companies reset supply chains.

Fox Business says companies including Old Dominion Freight Line, Arcbest and SAIA are expanding as businesses try to make their supply chains more nimber to ctach up to rapidly shifting consumer demands.

Operators in the highly competitive sector are benefiting as businesses scramble to meet surging e-commerce demand from shoppers who are ordering everything from paper towels to furniture online.

Airline traffic

U.S. passenger airline traffic fell 60% in 2020 to the lowest number since 1984.

Of course, the pandemic was to blame.

The U.S. Transportation Department say there were 368 million passengers in 2020, down from 922.6 million in 2019.

Airlines for America, an industry trade group, said the nine largest U.S. airlines lost $46 billion before taxes in 2020 and said that passenger volumes are unlikely to return to prev-COVID-19 levels before 2023 or 2024.

Fake Amazon reviews

Online hucksters may be selling Amazon reviews in bulk to help merchants manipulate the e-commerce platform’s rating system.

British Consumer Advocacy Group, which found 10 websites offering “review manipulation” services that rely on vast networks of users to drum up positive reviews for Amazon Marketplace sellers in violation of the site’s policies.

Amazon says it removed its “Amazon Choice” badge from products that which it found had been pumped up by manipulated reviews.