Airline speeds up changes

Advertiser News Services

Continental Airlines has accelerated a plan to introduce newer planes on its Hawai'i routes, which will mean almost 1,500 fewer seats coming to the state each week and almost 200 fewer employees based here as of Monday.

The airline had scheduled the replacement of its aging Hawai'i fleet of DC-10 jets with more fuel-efficient and easier-to-maintain Boeing 767s between late October and April.

But following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that triggered a massive travel slowdown, the company decided to make the change by Oct. 1, an airline spokeswoman said.

The company, which two weeks ago announced a 20 percent cut in routes and 12,000 layoffs, is not reducing the number or frequency of Hawai'i flights. But because the 767s have 47 fewer seats than DC-10s, there will be 188 fewer seats to the Mainland every day plus 141 fewer seats to Micronesia a week.

Arrivals rose in August

Visitor arrivals and visitor days jumped in August 2001, the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism reported yesterday.

More than 646,000 visitors arrived in Hawai'i in August, up 2.4 percent from August 2000, DBEDT said. Total days spent by visitors in Hawai'i were 5.7 million, a 4.9 percent increase from the same month in 2000.