Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Wednesday, September 10, 1997

Hawaii is top market
for honeymooners

Hawaii is the best place for newlyweds to travel, according to a survey of travel agents conducted by Modern Bride magazine.

Second and third places went to Jamaica and Mexico. The top honeymoon destinations were selected from responses to a questionnaire sent out in April to more than 3,000 travel agents, the magazine said.

Winners were chosen according to points awarded in categories as value, romantic atmosphere and wedding locales. The survey will be reported in the December/January issue of Modern Bride to come out in late October.

Hawaiian Air gets link
with medical service

Hawaiian Airlines crew members on flights between the mainland and Hawaii will have an immediate telecommunications link with medical experts so that they can help passengers in case of emergency.

Hawaiian Air said it has an agreement with MedLink, a service of Phoenix-based MedAire Inc., to link the aircraft personnel with one of MedLink's certified emergency physicians at any time.

The airline's cabin crews will continue to handle emergencies the way they've been trained to do but the MedLink connection adds the expertise of licensed physicians trained to deal with in-flight medical emergencies, Hawaiian Air said.

Bank exec Leppert OK'd
as Campbell Estate trustee

Local banking and real estate executive Tom Leppert has been approved to become a trustee of the Estate of James Campbell.

State Circuit Court Judge Virginia Crandall approved the nomination late last month, the estate said yesterday.

Leppert, vice chairman of Pacific Century Financial Corp. and its principal subsidiary Bank of Hawaii, will become the estate's 22nd trustee starting Jan. 1. He succeeds C. Dudley Pratt Jr., who retires at the end of this year.

Prior to joining Bank of Hawaii, Leppert served as president and chief executive of Castle & Cooke Hawaii for seven years. He joins Paul Cassiday, Clint Churchill and David Heenan on the board of $2 billion-in-assets Campbell Estate, which is one of the state's largest private landowners. Last year, Campbell Estate trustees earned $840,000 in commissions.

Justice Dept to review
AOL-CompuServe deal

WASHINGTON -- America Online Inc.'s plan to acquire the customers of its closest competitor, CompuServe Corp., is being reviewed by the Justice Department.

Under the three-way deal announced this week, WorldCom Inc., the nation's fourth-largest long-

distance phone company, will pay $1.2 billion for CompuServe and sell its online consumer business to AOL. WorldCom will keep CompuServe's 1,200 corporate customers.

For now, the Justice Department's review, announced yesterday, is focusing on the part of the deal involving AOL and CompuServe, government officials said.

However, the department did not rule out reviewing WorldCom's role or other aspects of the proposed deal.

By law the government must review the deal to make sure it won't stifle competition or lead to higher consumer or business prices. Antitrust reviews are divided between the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.