Hawaiian Airlines starting Long Beach service

Hawaiian Airlines is debuting nonstop daily service starting Thursday between Daniel K. Inouye International Airport and Long Beach Airport. The new service will represent Hawaiian’s 12th U.S. gateway city.

Hawaiian, which will operate the route with its new narrow-­body 189-seat A321neo aircraft, will depart Honolulu at 12:30 p.m. Thursday and arrive in Long Beach, Calif., at 9 p.m. The inaugural return flights will depart Long Beach at 8:30 a.m. on Friday and arrive in Honolulu at 11:40 a.m.

Ceremony set for new Mauka Concourse

The state Department of Transportation will hold a groundbreaking at 11 a.m. today to mark the beginning of the Mauka Concourse project at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.

The $220 million construction project will provide additional gate capacity and 260,000 square feet of space.

Gov. David Ige and Hawaiian Airlines President and CEO Peter Ingram will be among the speakers.

U.S. home prices in March jumped 6.8%

WASHINGTON >> U.S. home prices climbed in March with buyers paying a premium for ownership as the number of properties up for sale declines and mortgage rates increase.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index released Tuesday increased 6.8 percent in March from a year earlier. The sharpest gains were in Seattle, Las Vegas and San Francisco, each of which reported prices rising in excess of 11 percent.

The home price index is slightly higher than the 2006 peak, before the housing market and the economy crashed. The steadily improving economy has helped bring back buyers and higher prices. Home prices are outstripping wage growth easily.

Those soaring prices have been offset by historically low mortgage rates in recent years, but the average 30-year mortgage rate has shot up to a seven-year high of 4.66 percent, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac.

That is putting homeownership out of reach for an increasing number of Americans.

Consumer confidence bounces back in May

WASHINGTON >> American consumers were feeling a bit more optimistic in May following a slight decline in confidence in April. The Conference Board, a business research group, said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose to 128.0 from a revised 125.6 in April. That follows March’s 127.0 and February’s 130.0, which was the highest reading since November of 2000.

ON THE MOVE

The American Alliance of Museums has elected Kippen de Alba Chu as board chairman effective May 2018 through April 2020. De Alba Chu is executive director of The Friends of Iolani Palace and also serves on the boards of the Western Museums Association, Friends of Hawaii Robotics and Hawaii Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations.

Teach for America — Hawai’i has elected Elisa Yadao to its regional advisory board. She is senior vice president and chief communications and community engagement officer for HMSA and also serves on the boards of the American Heart Association Hawaii Chapter, Hawaii Island Economic Development Board, East Hawaii Regional Health Improvement Collaborative and Polynesian Voyaging Society.

ProsPac Holdings group has named Rick Stack executive vice president. He was previously senior vice president of development at Alexander & Baldwin. His 20 years of experience include being vice president and operations manager at Molokai Ranch and development project manager at the state Housing Finance and Development Corp.