Hawaiian Airlines transported a company-record 11.1 million passengers last year to mark 12 straight years of growth.

The state’s largest carrier, which is due to report its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings Jan. 24, said Monday its 2016 passenger traffic was up 3.5 percent over the 10.7 million it transported in 2015.

Hawaiian’s load factor, or the percentage of seats filled, was 84.3 percent for the year, up 2.7 percentage points from 81.6 percent in 2015. Revenue passenger miles, or one paying passenger transported 1 mile, rose 7.1 percent to 15.5 million from 14.5 million. Available seat miles, or one seat transported 1 mile, increased 3.7 percent to 18.4 million from 17.7 million.

For December the number of passengers that Hawaiian carried gained 2.7 percent to 2.73 million from 2.66 million. The load factor increased to 86 percent from 82.9 percent. Revenue passenger miles rose 8.1 percent to 3.9 million from 3.6 million, and available seat miles gained 4.1 percent to 4.6 million from 4.4 million.

Draft plan to fight invasive species finished

A $378 million state plan for keeping more invasive species out of Hawaii while also fighting harder against destructive pests that are already here has been completed.

The state announced Tuesday that it has finished a final draft of a 10-year plan to have multiple state agencies work together with the private sector to combat invasive species.

The 114-page plan, released in draft form in September, can be found at hdoa.hawaii.gov.

According to the Hawaii Interagency Biosecurity Plan, the state Department of Agriculture is the only state agency mandated to have a biosecurity program, which was implemented in 2008. Since then, however, the agency has suffered funding and staff cutbacks. The new plan tasks other agencies, including the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, University of Hawaii and state Department of Health, with pitching in on roughly 150 action items.

Implementing the new plan will largely depend on the Legislature to fund the action items.

ON THE MOVE

Richard R. Vuylsteke is the new president of the East-West Center, effective Jan. 1. He was president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong for the last eight years. Vuylsteke has replaced Charles E. Morrison, who served as president for 18 years and will remain a distinguished senior fellow to the center.

The Public Relations Society of America Hawaii chapter is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year and has announced its 2017 board of directors: president Jennifer Armstrong of Kaia Consulting; president-elect Jocelyn Collado of Becker Communications; past president David Pettinger of Anthology Marketing Group; secretary Kalli Abernathy of Bennet Group Strategic Communications; treasurer Keith DeMello of the state Office of Enterprise Technology Services; and communications officers Jennifer Lieu and Noreen Reimel of Ulupono Initiative.