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Norwegian to swap ships for Hawaii

Norwegian Cruise Line said it will be months before the Pride of America will be ready to cruise Hawaiian waters after the ship took on water in a storm in Germany this week, so the cruise line will swap the ship's schedule with another that was to enter the local market later this year.

Divers were sealing up the Pride of America yesterday, which took on water up to its third deck at the dock where it was undergoing work. The ship will have to be floated again before it can be assessed for damage, but the likely impact of salt water getting into the ship's machinery means the equipment will have to be cleaned, and that will take time, NCL America executive Robert Kritzman said.

The cruise line said it will press ahead with the planned July 4 launch of a U.S.-flagged cruise ship in Hawaii by bringing in the U.S.-flagged cruise ship Pride of Aloha, which is sailing as the Norwegian Sky and had been scheduled for interisland cruises in October.

Customers who booked on the Pride of America will be allowed to rebook on the Pride of Aloha, for no additional fee. Customers who don't rebook will get a full refund, Kritzman said.

Kritzman said it was not clear whether the Pride of America would be ready for launch by October.

Hawaiian Air passengers increase

Hawaiian Airlines enjoyed an uptick in passenger traffic in December as 481,321 people flew on the airline, a 2.7 percent rise from 468,561 a year ago.

The increase left the airline with a slight 0.2 percent gain for the full year. Hawaiian had 5,597,407 passengers in 2003 vs. 5,587,122 the previous year.

Hawaiian also showed year-over-year increases in its scheduled systemwide operations for revenue passenger miles, available seat miles and load factor.

Its revenue passenger miles, which represents total miles flown times the number of passengers, rose 18 percent last month to 518.1 million from 439.1 million. For the year, it gained 15.5 percent to 5.6 billion from 4.8 billion.

The company's load factor, which is the percentage of seating capacity utilized, was 84.3 percent in December, a gain of 10.1 percentage points from 74.2 percent in December 2002. For the year, the load factor was 80.3 percent, an increase of 3.4 percentage points from 76.9 percent in 2002.

Available seat miles -- one seat available for one mile -- gained 3.9 percent in December to 614.8 million from 591.5 million. For the year, Available seat miles totaled 6.9 billion, a 10.7 percent increase from 6.2 billion in 2002.

Ticketmaster aligns with Times

Ticketmaster has switched its retail affiliation from Foodland Super Markets Ltd. to Times Supermarkets.

Tickets to many Oahu arts, sporting and cultural events may be purchased at the 12 Oahu Times stores, where seating charts, venue details and other information may also be found.

The Ticketmaster locations at Times also will offer tickets to selected events in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and other cities this side of the Rocky Mountains. The Ticketmaster hours of operation are from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sunday.

Event listings and other methods of purchase can be found at www.ticketmaster.com or by calling 877-750-4400 toll free.

Brewbaker to meet with Fed

Paul Brewbaker, chief economist for Bank of Hawaii, will be in Washington next week to present his economic forecast as part of the American Bankers Association Economic Advisory Committee.

The 10 committee members meet in Washington twice a year to develop a consensus economic forecast to guide the banking industry and policy makers. The economists will present their forecast to representatives of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Council of Economic Advisers on Tuesday in Washington and to the media at the ABA on Wednesday.

Brewbaker's three-year term expires at the end of 2005.