Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Tuesday, March 20, 2001
Hawaiian Airlines traffic falls 4% in February
Hawaiian Airlines saw a 4 percent decline in the number of passengers it carried in February, lifting 19,664 fewer passengers than it had in the previous February.However, February 2000 was a strong month, with a 12 percent increase in passengers from February 1999.
The airline said it carried 471,506 people last month, compared to 491,170 a year earlier, when mainland travelers flocked in after the end of the year 2000 worries.
The airline's systemwide load factor, the percentage of available seats occupied by paying passengers, increased to 75.7 percent from a year-earlier 74.8 percent due to lower capacity.
Available seat miles of 533.6 million last month were down 3.4 percent from 552.1 million the previous February. A seat mile is one seat carried one mile.
Hawaiian does not separate interisland travel in its monthly reporting, showing only the total passenger movement through its entire system, including Hawaii to the mainland and South Pacific.
Women's business forum to focus on health issues
Alternative health and wellness is fast becoming a big part of mainstream medical treatment.To help Hawaii business owners capitalize on the growing trend, the Hawaii Women's Business Center is presenting a series of workshops beginning Friday.
The two workshops, "Creating a health and wellness tourism marketing plan" and "Creating a health and wellness tourism business plan," are co-sponsored by federal Small Business Administration.
The marketing plan seminar will be Friday at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, then March 30 at Kauai Community College, April 6 at the Hawaii Women's Center at 1111 Bishop St., and April 11 at a site to be determined on Maui.
The business plan seminar will be at the same sites, beginning April 6 on Maui, April 20 on Kauai, April 26 in Hilo and a date to be determined on Oahu. Workshop hours are 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Cost is $45 per workshop or $85 for both.
For more information, call 522-8136.
Central Bank's parent declares dividend
In other news,Hawaii company CPB Inc., parent of Central Pacific Bank, declared a first- quarter cash dividend of 16 cents per common share, payable on April 27 to shareholders of record March 30. The dividend is unchanged from the previous quarter.
Starbucks to split its stock 2-for-1
NEW YORK -- Starbucks Corp., which has several stores in Hawaii, said today it will split its shares 2-for-1.The stock split will double the number of shares to 393.6 million, but halve their value. The com pany had 196.8 million shares on average as of Dec. 31.
The new shares will be issued April 27 to shareholders of record as of March 30.
It is Starbucks' fourth 2-for-1 stock split since the Seattle-based coffee retailer went public in 1992.
Lycos inadvertently shuts down Web sites
WALTHAM, Mass. >> Web portal Lycos said that it mistakenly shut down an unknown number of Web sites through its Tripod Web hosting service during the weekend while cutting off customers who violated their service agreement.Lycos spokeswoman Dorianne Almann said the company regularly shuts down sites for prohibited member conduct, including threats to minors, stalking, and racially or ethnically offensive material.
She said a number of sites that did not violate the agreement were also mistakenly shut down, but would be restored within 24 to 48 hours.
"The pages that were removed on purpose were in direct violation," Almann said. But shutting down the other pages "was definitely not something we did on purpose."
Almann said sites operated through Lycos' Angelfire site may also have been affected. She said she did not know how many sites were affected.
Lycos, owned by Spanish conglomerate Terra Lycos, is the fourth most visited digital media property, with over 32 million unique visitors last month, according to research by Media Metrix.
Play it again: Tivo shares jump
NEW YORK >> Shares of Tivo Inc. gained as much as 45 percent yesterday, a day after it received favorable coverage on CBS network's "60 Minutes."Tivo stock closed at $5.09 today, up $1.05 on the Nasdaq stock market. In the past 12 months, Tivo lost $206 million on revenue of $3.6 million.
In a Sunday report on personal video-recording devices that included Tivo, the popular news program said the company's technology "could drastically change" television audiences' viewing habits.
"I suspect the '60 Minutes' piece is what's driving the stock," said David Smith, an analyst at Dain Rauscher Wessels.
IBM, Intel to sell chips, software for Web devices
Armonk, N.Y. >> International Business Machines Corp., the No. 2 software maker, and chipmaker Intel Corp. said they will jointly sell specially designed software and chips to run devices linked to the Web.Terms were not disclosed. The marketing agreement covers compact software to be embedded along with a microprocessor on a small board the companies will sell to makers of handheld computers, cell phones and Web tablets. Intel, the No. 1 chipmaker, said the alliance will help device makers speed wireless products to market.
AOL anti-spam effort wipes out some e-mail
ATLANTA >> Hundreds of thousands of e-mails sent by EarthLink Inc. customers to America Online accounts were rejected and lost over a period spanning at least 10 days, EarthLink said yesterday.An AOL spokesman said software designed to restrict junk e-mail, or spam, was to blame.
After conferring yesterday, the companies said the problem had been resolved.
Steve Dougherty, EarthLink's director of systems vendor management, complained that AOL had not assigned executives at a level high enough to resolve the trouble more quickly.
He said the problem was brought to EarthLink's attention Wednesday after some of its customers complained that e-mail sent to AOL accounts was not reaching intended recipients -- and no error message was returned.
"Going backward, there is nothing to be done. The mail that was lost is lost," he said. "We think it's in the hundreds of thousands but probably less than 1 million. It's still a very large number."
AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein said the trouble was not limited to material from EarthLink.
"One of our top priorities is protecting our members from spam," AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein said. "Our system automatically shields members from servers that send significant volumes of spam. A small percentage of EarthLink servers fell into that category."