CARGO: Cocaine and Carnations

When a freeze wilted half the flowers prepared for this year's Tournament of Roses Parade, two jets from Avianca, the Colombian airline, flew to Los Angeles with enough carnations to keep the beauty queens in the pink. But similar rescues will not be possible for a while, at least not from Avianca. Last week the airline suspended cargo flights to the U.S. The move followed the seizure of 422 lbs. of cocaine on a flight from Bogota to Miami. The U.S. Customs Service fined the airline $6.8 million. Since 1986, 5,000 lbs. of cocaine have been found on 14 Avianca flights, and the carrier felt it had to cancel its cargo service.