Group Completes Acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines

A Newport Beach investment group headed by developer J. Thomas Talbot and former baseball commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth completed the acquisition Friday of ailing Hawaiian Airlines.

The $37-million deal gives the Talbot group 85% of the common stock of HAL Inc., the Honolulu-based holding company for both Hawaiian Airlines and the West Maui Airport, which serves Maui’s popular North Shore vacation area.

Ueberroth and John H. Magoon Jr., the 73-year-old former chairman and majority owner of HAL, were named co-chairmen, and Talbot was elected to the board and named president and chief operating officer.

Talbot, a Newport Beach attorney and developer, has helped start three airlines--AirCal, Jet America and Southwest Airlines--and served in operating capacities with each. Ueberroth built the Ask Mr. Foster travel agency before being named chairman of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, which coordinated the 1984 Summer Games.

Hawaiian Airlines serves the five Hawaiian Islands and 14 Pacific Rim cities, including Los Angeles, Seattle and Anchorage.

Talbot declined Friday to discuss his group’s plans for the airline, but he has acknowledged in the past that the carrier is plagued by an aging fleet and has suffered nearly three years of operating losses, in part because of high maintenance costs.

A condition of its $22-a-share tender offer for HAL stock, launched in August, was the acceptance by Hawaiian Airlines’ labor unions of a new, 5-year contract aimed at increasing productivity and decreasing salary costs.