HAWAII

Isle air seats expected to drop

Total air seats from November to January on flights to Hawaii are expected to drop by 14.5 percent to 2.2 million during the three-month period, a state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism report released yesterday shows.

Only Lihue airport was forecast to see an increase, with seats rising 8.2 percent to 113,717. From the United States mainland, 1.6 million seats are expected, a decline of 16.8 percent.

From Japan, 387,118 visitors are expected - a drop of 11.8 percent - greater than the total international decline of 8.3 percent to 628,906.

The DEBEDT analysis is based on scheduled flights as of October.

Go! carries 18.5% more passengers

Mesa Air Group's interisland carrier go! carried 18.5 percent more passengers in October than it did a year ago and filled a greater percentage of those flights.

The 2-year-old carrier said yesterday it had 63,482 passengers last month, up from 53,559 in October 2007, while its load factor of 70.75 percent bettered the 67.23 percent it had a year ago.

Go!'s available seat miles, or one seat transported one mile, rose 16.8 percent to 13.3 million from 11.4 million while revenue passenger miles, or one paying passenger transported one mile, jumped 23 percent to 9.4 million form 7.7 million.

Go! also said its on-time performance rate was 82.1 percent, down from 84.4 percent a year ago, and its overall completion factor was 99.2 percent, up from 97.4 percent.

Aloha Air Cargo names president

Aloha Air Cargo announced yesterday that it named Mike Malik as the company's president. As president, Malik is responsible for the overall operations of the airline.

“;In addition to having a wealth of knowledge and experience in all aspects of airline operations, Mike Malik is genuinely passionate about building upon the legacy of this great company and taking it to new heights,”; said Tim Engle, president of Saltchuk Resources, Aloha Air Cargo's owner. “;We are very pleased to appoint a person of this caliber to lead Aloha Air Cargo.”;

Prior to joining Aloha Air Cargo as senior vice president, Malik served as the chief information officer for Aloha Airlines. Before his tenure at Aloha Airlines, he was one of the team of people that started MAXjet Airways of Dulles, Va., and served as its chief marketing officer.

Advertiser property for sale

The parent company of the Honolulu Advertiser has put up for sale about three acres of land adjacent to its newspaper offices on Kapiolani Blvd.

The building housing the newsroom and executive offices will not be sold.

Amid staff layoffs and buyout offers instituted due to slumping advertising sales in a downturned economy, the decision was made to list the land and some unused building for sale with brokerage firm CB Richard Ellis.

The company previously tried to sell the real estate, but no deals have been reached. There is no set asking price and newspaper executives did not return Star-Bulletin calls.

NATION

Mortgage rates drop to 6.2%

Mortgage rates dropped this week, providing a dose of welcome news to prospective home buyers.

Freddie Mac, the mortgage giant, reported yesterday that rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.20 percent for the week ending yesterday. That was down sharply from 6.46 percent last week.

Thirty-year mortgage rates hit a high for the year of 6.63 percent in late July, and then dropped to a seven-month low of 5.78 percent for the week ending Sept. 18.

For 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages, which are popular with people who are refinancing, rates dropped to 5.88 percent this week, compared with 6.19 percent last week.