FINANCIALLY-troubled Hawaiian

New owners for Hawaiian Air

Airlines is about to get a new own er, a group of investors including the highly-regarded Peter V. Ueberroth, formerly the csar of professional baseball in the United States. Ueberroth, his brother John, and, leading the group, California investor J. Thomas Talbott, have agreed to buy 51 percent of Hawaii Air, and to invest an unstated amount of additional capital in the business.

Hawaiian Airlines parent company, HAL Inc., had fallen on bad times, re porting a net loss of US $19.1 million in the first six months of this year. At the time of the sale HAL had a negative net worth of US$B.5 million. The line, however, has a fleet of 29 aircraft, and operates flights between a number of locations on the US West Coast and in the Pacific, including American Samoa, Western Samoa, Tonga, Tahiti, Guam, Australia and New Zealand. The airline’s hub, and its central office, are in Hon olulu. It also does a global charter busi ness, for the US military and other cus tomers, and runs an inter-island service within the Hawaiian chain of islands.

One of its scheduled routes, on which it has a monopoly, is between Hawaii, Apia and Pago Pago. It carries the mail and medical supplies, and is used by Un ited States Government and American Samoan officials as they move back and forth in their work.

Hawaiian Airlines operation on this route has been the subject of frequent and sharp criticism for repeated delays and unpredictable practices. The carrier uses DCBs and L-1011s on this route, and charges $350 for a full-price one way coach fare (though most tickets are sold at various discounts). A round-trip, discounted fare from Los Angeles to Pago Pago and back costs $Bl9.

American Samoa’s congressman, Eni

F.H. Faleomaveaga, a frequent flyer on

airline, welcomed the new ownership. “I hope that this name means that Amer ican Samoa will get better service; I do feel that the Samoa route was given too low a priority in the past.” The Con gressman said that he planned to meet with the new owners in the near future.

Ueberroth is known as an ambitious and restless man. He rose to fame in the

United States when he successfully man aged the extravaganza which were the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. He went on to the highly visible position of Base ball Commissioner and during his term in the post he was occasionally men tioned as a long-shot possibility for the White House. After leaving baseball to return to business, he tried to gain con trol of Eastern Airline, a major US Mainland air system, but failed. In the Hawaii Air venture he apparently has succeeded in another of his life goals, to control an airline.

Ueberroth’s colleague, tipped to be the new board chairman of Hawaiian Air lines, is Talbott, the founder of Jet America, a West Coast airline.

The formal transfer of ownership, a$ is often the case with American corpora tions, will take a while. The Board of Directors of HAL Inc. has voted unani mously to recommend the sale to the stockholders, who will assemble, in Hon olulu, in October 19 to vote on the mat ter. Then, if the vote is favourable, as expected, it will be necessary to secure the approval of various transportation and financial regulatory agencies in Washington before the new owners can take over. □