BUSINESS BRIEFS
Hawaiian Air fills more seats
Advertiser Staff and News Services
Hawaiian Airlines said its planes were 87.8 percent full in April, a 0.9 percentage-point increase over the same month a year earlier.
The state's largest airline also said it served 572,613 passengers in April, up 17.4 percent from the year-earlier period.
Hawaiian said its revenue passenger miles — one of the broadest measures of passenger traffic — increased 20 percent to 662.9 million in April.
REPAIRS SET FOR MATSON BARGE
Matson Navigation Co. Inc., has awarded a contract to BAE Systems to make repairs to the cargo barge Mauna Loa.
The estimated total value of the 42-day work package, which will begin in July, could be more than $2 million. The company already is at work on the sister barge, Haleakala.
Items in the contract include topside and underwater body preservation, hull and mechanical repairs and preparation for inspections. Work will start on the Mauna Loa after repairs to the Haleakala are finished this month. All work will be performed at BAE Systems' Ship Repair facility in San Francisco.
The Mauna Loa, like the Haleakala, is a cargo container barge that serves the interisland Hawai'i trade routes for Matson Navigation Co.
SEGWAY INVENTOR TO STOP IN AT UH
Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, will be at the University of Hawai'i Monday to announce details of next year's Regional Robotics competition, which will be in Hawai'i from March 27 to 29.
Gov. Linda Lingle will join Kamen from 4 to 5 p.m. at the Stan Sheriff Center on UH-Manoa's lower campus.
Kamen invented the Segway HT, an electric, self-balancing human transporter with computer-controlled gyroscopic stabilization and control system that's guided by shifting body weight.
