BUSINESS BRIEFS
Hyatt Regency union talks near
Advertiser Staff and News Services
The Hyatt Regency Waikiki Resort & Spa and the union representing its employees are scheduled to begin contract negotiations Friday.
The hotel workers union, Unite Here Local 5, also is to meet with the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa next week. Local 5 has begun negotiations with the four Sheraton properties in Waikiki and the Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & Spa.
Contracts expire June 30 for nine O'ahu hotels, including the Hyatt, Marriott, Hilton and the Sheraton properties. A contract for Ala Moana Hotel employees has been extended to Aug. 31. Contracts for the 10 Honolulu hotels cover about 6,000 employees.
HAWAIIAN MAY TRAFFIC UP 5.6 PERCENT
Hawaiian Airlines said it flew 502,108 passengers in May, up 5.6 percent from the same month a year earlier.
The state's largest airline said its planes were 86.8 percent full last month, which was up 1.5 percentage points from May 2005's 85.3 percent.
The airline also recorded 562.5 million revenue passenger miles in May, which was a 1.6 percent increase from the previous May. Available seat miles were 648 million, which was down 0.2 percent from last May.
CONSUMERS CUT SPENDING IN MAY
WASHINGTON — Consumers, battered by surging gasoline prices and rising interest rates, cut back sharply on their spending in May, providing further evidence that the economy is slowing.
It is still an open question whether the slowdown is coming soon enough to keep inflation under control.
The Commerce Department reported that retail sales edged up only 0.1 percent last month and would have been in negative territory had it not been for a big rise in the price of gasoline.
Separately, the Labor Department reported that wholesale prices rose by just 0.2 percent in May, a big drop from the past two months. But core inflation, excluding food and energy, showed an increase of 0.3 percent, faster than analysts had expected.
