Low-cost carrier Allegiant is finally coming through with long-rumored flights from Bellingham to Hawaii.

The Las Vegas-based carrier announced that service from Bellingham to Maui will begin Nov. 14 and service to Honolulu will begin Nov. 15.

Alaska Airlines, based in SeaTac, already connects Bellingham non-stop to Honolulu.

Allegiant plans introductory specials of $159 to Honolulu and $199 to Maui one-way.

The Nevada airline already connects Bellingham with Los Angeles, Phoenix, Palm Springs, Oakland, Las Vegas and San Diego.

The leisure-oriented airline has built its business by connecting smaller cities to vacation destinations often with less-than-daily flights.

The Bellingham …

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If your hopes for a full economic recovery are measured by the advent of inflation, then you’ll have to wait just a bit longer.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday issued its bi-monthly look at prices in the Greater Puget Sound area – including figures from Pierce and Thurston counties.

Over the past two months, overall consumer prices rose 0.9 percent. For the past year, prices were up a minimal 2.9 percent.

Not surprisingly for those people who drive, the price of gasoline topped the increases with a two-month jump of 13.9 percent – although the one-month increase mellowed …

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Philanthropy Northwest, a Seattle-based agency that assists grantmakers in six Northwest states, is out this week with its biennial report of corporate and foundation giving.

Where foundations and corporations gave Northwest nonprofits $1.3 billion in 2008, the number dipped to $1.08 billion in 2010, a 23.5 percent decline.

Listing trends, the authors of the report noted a reduction in capital grants; a prevalence of small grants, with more than half under $10,000; increased regionalism as foundations and corporations offer funding in multiple Northwest states; and an percent increase in funds given to Indian Country while most other categories show a …

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SeaTac-based Alaska Airlines was one of four airlines to win federal Department of Transportation approval today to fly new long-distance routes from Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport.

Alaska had applied for two routes from the close-in Reagan Airport — the other route was to San Diego — but won only one.

The DOT instead allowed US Airways to trade an existing flight from Reagan to Dallas for a flight from Reagan to San Diego’s Lindbergh Field.

Flights from Reagan are strictly controlled by the DOT because of limited capacity at the airport, which is much closer to the nation’s …

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Last week we speculated that the Port of Tacoma’s updates to its Pier 3 infrastructure would allow the port to host Maersk Line’s new “Triple E” containerships, the world’s largest vessels.

The Port of Tacoma had been recruiting Maersk to return to Tacoma after it left two years ago to join its containership partner CMA CGM at the Port of Seattle.

But now Port of Tacoma spokeswoman Tara Mattina says Maersk has signed a contract that will keep it calling at the Port of Seattle for several more years.

The huge new ships being built in Korea for Maersk are …

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Pilots and flight instructors at Boeing’s Flight Training Services division have voted to join a union, the Airplane Manufacturing Pilots Association bargaining unit of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace.

SPEEA represents more than 22,000 Boeing engineers and technical workers in Washington, Oregon, Utah and California.

In a vote supervised by the National Labor Relations Board, pilots gave the union 48 ‘Yes’ and 11 ‘no’ votes. The expanded bargaining unit, which had already represented other Boeing pilots now includes 105 members.

The new union members are responsible for all technical, safety and flight standards, along with instructing …

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Average gas prices in Tacoma jumped by nearly a dime a gallon in the last week as national gas prices fell in the same period by more than a nickel.

After a fairly steady decline over the last month in Tacoma, prices jumped up again in this market to an average of $4.148 a gallon according to The News Tribune’s Gas Price Tracker/

Meanwhile, the national average for gasoline prices declined from $3.792 last week to $3.739 this week.

Analysts attribute the difference in price changes to the Northwest’s relatively isolated market.

Unlike many states in the East and Midwest, …

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Sea-Tac Airport next week will become the second airport in the country to offer active duty military members an expedited trip through pre-flight security checks.

Military on active duty or engaged in active drills will be allowed to move through the Transportation Security Administration’s PreCheck line at the airport’s north security check station behind the United and Alaska airlines counters beginning at 4 a.m. Tuesday, said the TSA.

Ordinarily, passengers cleared to enter the PreCheck line won’t have to remove their shoes, belts or light coats, said TSA spokeswoman Lorie Dankers. They won’t have to remove their laptops or their …

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