Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Thursday, September 16, 1999
Hawaiian Air records increase in business
The passenger load on Hawaiian Airlines Inc. flights last month was up 11 percent from August 1998. The airline said it carried 550,748 passengers last month, compared with 496,183 in August 1998. Through the first eight months of 1999, Hawaiian carried 3.86 million passengers, an increase of 8.1 percent from 3.57 million in the equivalent period of 1998. Hawaiian flies mainland-Hawaii and Hawaii-South Pacific routes in addition to its interisland routes.
U.S. mortgages fall to 7.82% average
McLEAN, Va. -- The benchmark U.S. home mortgage rate fell to 7.82 percent this week, Freddie Mac said. The average rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage this week from 7.88 percent last week, according to a survey by Freddie Mac, the U.S. mortgage brokerage. The average rate on an adjustable mortgage rose to 6.22 percent from 6.21 percent last week, and the 15-year mortgage average rate fell to 7.43 percent from 7.49 percent.
Longs Drug acquires 38 Rite Aid stores
WALNUT CREEK, Calif. -- Longs Drug Stores Corp. agreed to buy 38 stores from Rite Aid Corp. in California for $186 million in cash, expanding its market share in Northern California. Longs said it will buy the inventory and fixed assets of the stores that average 34,000 square feet. Five of the stores are in the Los Angeles area, with the rest in Northern California, Bloomberg News reported.Rite Aide, the No. 3 U.S. drugstore chain, has discussed selling as many as 200 to 250 of its stores on the West Coast.
Longs, based in Walnut Creek, Calif., has about 381 stores in California, Hawaii, Washington, Nevada, Colorado and Oregon.
In other news . . .
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- The United Auto Workers won a 3 percent wage increase and a clearer path toward organizing nonunion plants at DaimlerChrysler AG in a tentative agreement today on a new national contract for 75,000 workers, local union officials said.