Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Wednesday, September 16, 1998
United honors memory of Hawaii's Patterson
United Airlines has named one of its new Boeing 747-400 jets after William A. "Pat" Patterson, the Hawaii-born executive who headed the airline from 1931 until his retirement as chairman in 1966.
Patterson, who was born in Waipahu, has been credited with launching the flight attendant profession by hiring nurses in the 1930s to help passengers who were afraid of flying. He also has been recognized for a number of safety improvements in aviation. Patterson, who died in 1980, had two earlier United aircraft named after him but they were retired from service.
Hawaiian carried fewer passengers in August
Hawaiian Airlines Inc. carried about 12,000 fewer passengers last month than it did in August 1997, a decrease of 2.4 percent to 496,183 people from 508,199. The airline said its available seat miles last month were up 2.4 percent at 491.9 million, from 480.3 million in the previous August. The increased capacity and the decline in passengers reduced its average load to 82.6 percent, from 85.4 percent in the year-earlier month.
South Pacific tourism sees sharp rebound
SUVA, Fiji -- A surge in visitors from the United States has helped turn around a slump in Pacific Island tourism, which has returned to growth after a huge downturn blamed on the Asian financial crisis, statistics released today show.Figures for 12 Pacific Island countries issued by the Tourism Council of the South Pacific show the number of tourists during the three months to the end of June came to 231,739, a 7 percent increase over the same period last year. By contrast, figures for the first three months of 1998 showed tourist numbers had plummeted by 20.5 percent compared with the same period a year earlier.
The total number of tourists to the region in the first six months of 1998 was up 2.5 percent increase over the same period in 1997.
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