Business in brief: Alaska to offer flights from Seattle to Hawaii

Alaska Airlines will start nonstop flights from Seattle to Hawaii in October, the airline announced Thursday.

Starting Oct. 12 a daily nonstop from Seattle will take passengers to Honolulu. A nonstop to Lihue on the island of Kauai starts on Oct. 28. Both flights will use 156-passenger Boeing 737s, the company announced.

Introductory one-way fares, with certain restrictions and blackout dates, will cost $109 from Seattle to Honolulu and $149 from Seattle to Lihue. That three-day introductory sale ends Saturday, according to an Alaska release. The airline has not said what fares will cost following the sale.

In 2006 about 21,000 passengers took flights from Spokane and landed in Honolulu, airport statistics show.

Olympia

Court upholds decision against Otis Hotel lessee

A Washington appeals court on Thursday weighed in on a legal battle between the former owners and tenant of the Otis Hotel downtown, upholding a lower court’s decision against the lessee.

The Washington State Court of Appeals, Division III, agreed that Otis Housing Association Inc. did not exercise its option to buy the building and must pay legal fees to prior owners John and Min Ha.

The Has sold the historic structure, 1101 W. First Ave., last year for about $1.4 million. Nonprofit Otis Housing operator Jim Delegans sued, saying he exercised an option to buy.

Both the Otis and the adjacent Commercial Building provide low-income housing. Delegans headed a nonprofit that recently lost ownership of the Commercial as collateral on a downtown project that went bankrupt – the Carlyle Care Center.

The Otis is owned by Two by Four Associates, an LLC operated by Peter Sikov, of Seattle.

Because Delegans’ appeal asked for arbitration of the Otis dispute, the Court of Appeals reviewed the case “de novo” – looking at it fresh. The decision upholds $3,975 in attorney fees and $429.35 in costs for the Has.

Dallas

Dell earnings fall; 8,000 layoffs in works

Dell Inc. said Thursday that earnings fell slightly in preliminary first-quarter results, and the computer maker planned to lay off more than 8,000 employees over the next year as part of an ongoing restructuring.

Dell said it earned $759 million, or 34 cents per share, in the three months ended May 4. That compared with $762 million, or 33 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

First-quarter sales rose nearly 1 percent from the year ago period to $14.6 billion.