Hawaiian Airlines’ passenger traffic up more than 10%
Hawaiian Airlines’ passenger traffic jumped 10.7 percent in July from the year-ago period as the fast-growing airline continued adding more seats from its expansion systemwide.
The state’s largest carrier transported 883,891 passengers compared with 798,780 in July 2011.
Available seat miles, or one seat transported one mile, jumped 26.8 percent to 1.4 million from 1.1 million. Revenue passenger miles, or one paying passenger transported one mile, grew 24.7 percent to 1.2 million from 926,691.
Hawaiian’s load factor, or the percentage of seats filled, slipped 1.4 percentage points to 83.8 percent from 85.2 percent.
Halekulani selects Krauer as GM
Halekulani Corp. said it has hired Ulrich Krauer, a former general manager of Kona Village Resort, to be general manager of the Halekulani hotel beginning Aug. 27.
Krauer is from Bern, Switzerland, and has worked in executive positions at several hotels, including St. Regis Monarch Beach and Sonoma Mission Inn in California; Hotel Crescent Court in Dallas; Hotel La Samanna in St. Martin, French West Indies; the Hotel Bel Air in Beverly Hills; the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas; and the Grand Bay Hotel Miami. He most recently served as asset manager at Somerset Grace Bay in the Caribbean.
Peter Shaindlin, chief operating officer of Halekulani Corp., said, "Ulrich’s exceptional expertise, professionalism and values will safeguard the Halekulani legacy."
Krauer is fluent in English and German, and proficient in Italian, French and Spanish, the company said.
First Hawaiian gets global Visa award
First Hawaiian Bank, the largest in Hawaii, is one of three banks worldwide to receive Visa’s service quality performance award that recognizes those banks with the lowest charge-back rates for fraudulent reasons.
A fraudulent charge-back occurs when a stolen or counterfeit credit card is used for purchases and the legitimate cardholder disputes the charge made on the account. In every fraudulent case, cardholders are protected by their card issuer against these kinds of charges. First Hawaiian was recognized for its 2011 low charge-back-to-sales ratio, which measures how many First Hawaiian merchants sustained losses against the bank’s total Visa sales volume.
First Hawaiian, the state’s largest local credit and debit card processor of merchant services, said it won the award by effectively educating its merchant customers on Visa acceptance procedures designed to ensure that transactions are properly processed at the point of sale.
Sports Authority to open store in Hilo
Sports Authority will hold the grand opening of its newest store in Hilo at the Prince Kuhio Plaza on Saturday. The sporting goods retailer is opening a 50,000-square-foot store at 111 E. Puainako St.
The store includes new fitness and checkout areas, as well as an expanded footwear department.
The company also is hosting an appearance by former NFL and University of Hawaii lineman Jesse Sapolu at 1 p.m. Saturday.
Sports Authority has six stores in Hawaii and will add a seventh location this fall, filling the former Borders space at Windward Mall.
HTA picks N. America, W. Europe partners
The Hawaii Tourism Authority has once again selected the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau to continue leisure tourism destination marketing management services for the North America market. The two-year contract, which begins Jan. 1, requires that HVCB provide fixed-priced, pre-visit destination marketing representation services for the leisure market in North America, including Canada, which will drive incremental visitation and revenues for Hawaii and exceed established visitor-related targets on a calendar-year basis.
In addition, HTA awarded a two-year contract for the Western Europe market to AVIAREPS Tourism GmbH. The company will be responsible for developing and implementing a marketing plan that will generate incremental visitation and revenue for Hawaii from Western Europe, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland.
On the Move
Ku‘ikahi Mediation Center has named Julie Mitchell as its new executive director. She has 10 years of nonprofit experience, including as general manager for Friends of Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park.
Anthony Duggan has been named director of operations at the Fairmont Kea Lani, Maui. He has 18 years of professional experience in the hospitality industry.
Servco Automotive has announced Ryan Matsumoto as its marketing assistant. He was previously an account coordinator at Laird Christianson Advertising.