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Business college said to be sold

Hawaii Business College has been sold to a Southern California businessman by the wife of the school's late founder, according to people familiar with the situation.

The King Street school, which has an enrollment of about 280, has been suffering from declining enrollment, people familiar with the situation said. The private two-year college offers associate's degrees.

Established in 1973 by Mitsuru Omori, Hawaii Business College is described on its Web site as the only locally owned post-secondary school in Hawaii specializing in business education.

Anne Omori, the school's owner, president and chief executive officer, did not return several phone calls.

The predecessor of Hawaii Business College was the Stenographic Institute of Hawaii, which was founded in 1949.

Airlines may have rough summer

The airline industry is beginning to see what was supposed to be a promising year slip away, because of rising fuel costs, brutal competition -- especially on cross-country routes -- and its own lingering financial headaches.

While no one is predicting this summer will be as bad operationally as the infamous "summer from hell" in 2000, when one of four flights was delayed, canceled or diverted, there are fears that a difficult season lies ahead.

"In the past, a good summer could have paved its way to a break-even year; this summer, it probably won't," said Darin Lee, senior managing economist with LECG, a consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass.

Problems are already appearing. Yesterday, Delta Air Lines said it lost $387 million in the first quarter, kicking off what analysts fear will be a string of poor quarterly results for major airlines.

Some industry analysts say first-quarter losses could reach $1 billion or more for the carriers, even though traffic is rebounding to levels last seen before the September 2001 terrorist attacks.