Cathay Pacific Airways will be the launch customer for the Boeing Co.’s 747-400 freighter conversion program. The Hong Kong-based airline announced Thursday it has contracted with Boeing to oversee the conversion of at least six of its 747-400 passenger jets into cargo carriers. It’s part of Cathay’s plan to greatly expand its cargo services. The airline already operates 11 747 freighters, and last year ordered a new-built 747-400F from Boeing, which will be delivered in February 2005. The airline also plans to convert six to 12 of its 747-400 passenger jets. Engineers with Boeing’s Seattle-based Commercial Airplanes Services unit will oversee the work, which will be done by outside contractors. The first converted plane will be delivered in 2005.
A federal judge tentatively accepted a plea agreement Thursday for the wife of former Enron Corp. finance chief Andrew S. Fastow, a move that could lead to a plea from Fastow and possibly his cooperation in the investigation of other top executives in the energy giant’s collapse. Under the deal, Lea Fastow, a former assistant treasurer at Enron, would go to prison for five months – a fraction of the term her husband faces but one that would not be made to overlap with his, so their children would have a parent at home.
Levi Strauss &Co., the California Gold Rush outfitter whose blue jeans are a globally recognized symbol of America, closed its last two U.S. sewing plants Thursday. About 800 workers at the 26-year-old San Antonio plants lost their jobs in the move, which was announced last September. The financially troubled company, based in San Francisco, has been shifting production to overseas contractors for years to offset drooping sales in the ultra-competitive apparel market. Only two decades ago, it had 63 U.S. manufacturing plants.
U-Haul is forbidding its stores from renting trailers to customers driving Ford Explorers, citing product liability lawsuits involving the popular sport utility vehicle, a newspaper reported. U-Haul International Inc., North America’s largest trailer rental company with more than 17,000 outlets, implemented the policy Dec. 22, saying it can no longer afford to defend the lawsuits, The Detroit News reported in Thursday editions. “U-Haul has chosen not to rent behind this tow vehicle based on our history of excessive costs in defending lawsuits involving Ford Explorer towing combinations,” the company said in a statement released Thursday. A call seeking further comment was not immediately returned.
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