Company News: Coldwater Creek earnings up in spring

Solid sales of spring merchandise helped Coldwater Creek Inc. post first-quarter earnings of $12 million, officials said Tuesday.

The results, which were for the three-month period ending May 5, compared to net income of $11.6 million for the same period a year ago.

The Sandpoint-based retailer opened 12 stores during the first part of the year.

Comparable store sales increased 7.3 percent during the first quarter..

“We added new stores and gained additional market share during the period, despite the challenging … environment which continues to impact the women’s specialty apparel sector,” said Dennis Pence, company chairman and chief executive officer.

Horizon Air, a subsidiary of Alaska Air Group Inc., has cut fares by as much as 76 percent on several short flights in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Northern California.

With a 14-day advance purchase, one-way flights will cost $29, tickets bought a week in advance will cost $39, and same-day tickets will cost $49.

The reduced fares apply to flights between Bozeman and Butte, Mont.; Great Falls and Helena, Mont.; Pullman, Wash., and Lewiston, Idaho; Pendleton, Ore., and Pasco, Wash.; Kalispell and Missoula, Mont.; Eureka-Arcata and Redding, Calif.; Eugene and Redmond-Bend, Ore.; and a new nonstop flight between Bozeman, Mont., and Idaho Falls, Idaho, that Horizon will begin offering July 22.

Horizon lowered the fares to encourage more passengers, particularly business travelers, to fly rather than drive between cities anywhere from 26 miles to 163 miles apart, spokeswoman Jen Boyer said.

“We’re competing with the car,” Boyer said.

“A Ford Motor Co. official predicts that his company’s overall U.S. sales will drop in May, but its retail sales to individual buyers will show a year-over-year monthly increase for the first time since October of 2006.

George Pipas, Ford’s top sales analyst, told reporters Tuesday that the increase, which includes only the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands, would be fueled largely by rising sales of new crossover vehicles.

He said overall sales, which include those made to rental car companies and other fleet buyers, would drop by a single-digit percentage when compared with May of last year. Ford is trying to cut low-profit sales to rental car companies, and Pipas said that would drop about 20 percent in May from the same month last year.