Key national and local business events of 2001

Advertiser Staff

• It's official: 2000 was the best year in Hawai'i tourism history, bringing a record 6.98 million visitors to the Islands. The figure surpassed the previous high set in 1997 by more than 200,000. The record arrivals also nudged the state's hotels to their highest rates and occupancy in a decade — nearly 78 percent for the year according to one report.

February

A federal appeals court rules Napster must stop letting music fans use its free Internet-based service to share copyrighted material.

• Aloha Airlines, Hawai'i's biggest interisland carrier, announces expansion plans with new flights planned to Oakland and Orange County, Calif., and the Marshall Islands in the Central Pacific.

• Kapiolani Health, Straub Clinic & Hospital and Wilcox Health System of Kaua'i each approve plans to merge operations.

March

• Liberty House, Hawai'i's oldest and largest retailer, formally emerges from bankruptcy reorganization after three years.

April

Amid soaring energy prices and scheduled brownouts, Pacific Gas & Electric, California's biggest utility, files for bankruptcy protection.

Trans World Airlines is acquired by American Airlines.

• Michael O'Neill, the new chairman of Pacific Century Financial Corp., announces the company will reverse years of expansion, selling branches and closing offices around the Pacific to shave $5 billion in assets and 1,000 jobs to create a leaner, more streamlined operation focused on Hawai'i.

May

Ford and Firestone end a 95-year relationship, bitterly disagreeing over who's to blame for accidents involving Ford Explorers with Firestone tires.

• Honolulu is host to its first Asian Development Bank annual meeting, drawing about 3,000 participants from about 60 countries.

June

Apparel maker Warnaco Group Inc. files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, joining several other bankruptcies this year including steelmakers LTV and Bethlehem, photography company Polaroid, retailer Lechter's and airlines Midway and Sabena.

July

The European Union blocks General Electric Co.'s $41 billion purchase of Honeywell International Inc., the first time a proposed merger between two U.S. companies has been barred solely by European regulators.

United Airlines and US Airways Group call off their $4.3 billion merger after the Justice Department says it would sue to block the acquisition.

• Owners of financially troubled Trans Hawaiian Services Inc. shut the business down and file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after an effort to save Hawai'i's second-biggest tour and transportation company failed.

• Outrigger Enterprises Inc. announces a $300 million redevelopment plan for Waikiki that will be one of the biggest in the area's history, razing some of the most dated shops and hotels and creating a retail and entertainment mecca, higher grade rooms and lavish open space.

September

Hewlett-Packard and Compaq propose a nearly $24 billion merger, though major shareholders, including members of the Hewlett family, later say they'll oppose the deal.

The Justice Department abandons plan to break up Microsoft.

Sept. 17 — Exchanges open after four-session shutdown; Dow falls below 9,000. China, meanwhile, is admitted into the World Trade Organization.

Sept. 21 — Congress approves a $15 billion relief package for the airline industry as airlines shed more than 200,000 jobs, slash their schedules and lose billions of dollars due to a weak economy and post-Sept. 11 fears of flying. Meanwhile, Dow Jones industrial average hits 52-week low at 7,926.93; Nasdaq also hits a low at 1,387.06.

• Hawai'i companies, reeling from the tourism downturn, announce more than 2,000 layoffs. Unemployment claims soar at the state labor department.

October

Microsoft, Justice Department reach tentative deal to settle antitrust case.

• A report by Ernst & Young finds Hawai'i's hotels have been hit harder by a drop in demand after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks than the overall U.S. lodging market, and will recover slower because of the islands' dependence on air travel. In the week after the attacks, occupancy rates for Hawai'i's hotels dropped as much as 52 percent from a year earlier, while overall U.S. hotel occupancy fell 26 percent.

• Since the beginning of October, amid slumping demand, Japan Airlines has cut its total weekly flights to Hawai'i from 75 to 51

• A delegation of state and business leaders travels to Japan to reassure tourists that Hawai'i is a safe place to travel.

• The state launches a $20 million emergency tourism marketing campaign.

November

Phillips Petroleum and Conoco Inc. become the latest oil companies to agree to merge, in a deal worth nearly $35 billion.

The National Bureau of Economic Research officially declares the United States entered a recession in March, ending a record-breaking economic expansion at exactly 10 years.

December

Energy company Enron Corp. files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, capping a shockingly sudden decline for what was only months earlier the seventh-largest U.S. company.

The Labor Department reports the nation's unemployment rate shot up to 5.7 percent in November as the job loss total for the past two months hits 800,000, the worst performance in more than two decades.

The Federal Reserve cuts interest rates for the 11th time this year, bringing the cost of borrowing money to its lowest level in 40 years.

• Hawai'i's two major interisland carriers, Aloha and Hawaiian airlines, announce plans to merge in a move that will end 55 years of rivalry.