Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Monday, June 30, 1997

Canada, Fiji airlines
to link via Honolulu

SUVA, Fiji -- Canadian Airlines International and Fiji's national carrier, Air Pacific, announced today that they will launch a joint service in October linking Toronto and Vancouver with Fiji via Honolulu.

Air Pacific's chairman, Gerald Barrack, said the initial weekly service will fly an Air Pacific Boeing 767 jumbo jet to Honolulu to connect with a Canadian Airlines flight there.

Barrack said the service, still subject to government approval, will mark Air Pacific's return to Hawaii after a 10-year absence.

The airlines are discussing augmenting the route to add more flights, destinations, a joint frequent flyer program, and other improvements.

Earlier in June, Canadian Airlines announced that its code-sharing agreement with Air New Zealand for connecting flights at Honolulu would end in October.

AT&T announces plan
to cut rates up to 15%

WASHINGTON -- AT&T Corp. said today it will cut its basic rates for domestic long distance calls by 5 percent during daytime and evening hours and 15 percent during night and weekend hours.

The company said the cuts, beginning July 15, follow a recent Federal Communications Commission order calling for reductions in the access fees long distance companies must pay to local telephone companies.

One of AT&T's competitors, MCI, said it will make the same basic rate cuts on July 2.

In other news . . .

NEW YORK -- American Century Investments said it's in talks with J.P. Morgan & Co. to sell a minority stake in the Kansas City, Mo.-based money manager, Bloomberg News reported.

American Century is one of the largest U.S. mutual fund managers. J.P. Morgan is the fifth-largest U.S. bank.

Last year, Twentieth Century Cos. merged with Benham Group to form American Century.