BUSINESS BRIEFS
Theater changing to IMAX format
Advertiser staff & news services
One of the theaters at the Regal Dole Cannery complex will be converted to the IMAX format during the first three months of next year.
Regal Entertainment Group announced it will convert the theater with an IMAX digital projection system in early 2009. Under the system, films are projected in a large format onto screens that are slightly curved and moved forward to help create the feeling of being immersed in the movie.
Other IMAX theaters in Hawai'i include one in Waikiki and another at the Polynesian Cultural Center.
FREQUENT FLIER PLAN EXPANDED
Mokulele Airlines said passengers on its flights can earn frequent flier miles on Alaska Airlines when they fly interisland.
The air carrier said mileage plan members will earn 500 miles for each segment flown on Mokulele beginning on Dec. 15. Award redemption on Mokulele will be available in early 2009.
The frequent flier partners said they will launch the new effort by offering double miles — 1,000 miles per segment — on Mokulele from Jan. 1 through Feb. 28.
Mokulele last month began flying 14 flights a day between Honolulu and Lihu'e, Kaua'i and Kona, using 70-seat Embraer E170 jets operated by Indianapolis-based Republic Airways. It plans to expand service in January with flights to Kahului and Hilo.
COMPANY RECEIVES $26M CONTRACT
Science Applications International Corp. said it has been awarded a contract worth as much as $26 million by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center - Pacific.
The work will be performed primarily in Hawai'i and Guam and has a one-year base period with four one-year options. It will provide the engineering and technical support services.
CARLYLE GROUP ELIMINATES 100 JOBS
Carlyle Group, the private-equity firm that owns Hawaiian Telcom, is cutting 100 jobs, or 10 percent of its workforce, as the leveraged-buyout business remains stalled.
Some of the dismissals come at the Washington-based firm's group dedicated to taking U.S. companies private, spokesman Chris Ullman said. He declined to be more specific. The layoffs are separate from Carlyle's decision last month to shutter its Central European and Asian leveraged-finance units, which eliminated fewer than 20 jobs.
Private-equity firms have announced $204 billion in deals for 2008, a 70 percent decline from the same period a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg LLP.
Carlyle's move comes amid broader job losses at banks, brokerages and money managers. Almost 195,000 global financial- services jobs have been eliminated since the third quarter of last year, Bloomberg data show.
JOBLESS SUPPLY-TO-DEMAND RATE LOW
There were 1.44 unemployed people in Hawai'i for every online help-wanted ad here, according to a survey by the Conference Board.
The New York-based business group released a study showing Hawai'i has the 15th lowest supply-to-demand rate for all 50 states. The national rate was 2.27.
The report also said Honolulu had the seventh-lowest rate of 52 metropolitan areas surveyed. It had a rate of 1.13 unemployed persons for every online ad.
Honolulu's supply-demand rate has been rising since December 2006 when the rate was 0.77, the lowest of all the metropolitan areas measured by the New York-based Conference Board at the time.
