Business briefs for Feb. 5, 2004

Thursday, Feb. 5, 2004 | 11:01 a.m.

Las Vegas-based Internet travel packager sold

Travelworm Inc., a Las Vegas-based vacation packaging company and travel broker, has been sold to an investor group led by two New York companies.

Wasserstein Ventures, New York, and Cedar Street Group, Larchmont, are the buyers and named Jonathan Siegler, who served as Travelworm's president in 2002, the company's new chief executive. Siegler replaces Brad Brownstein, who has left the company.

Terms were not disclosed.

The new owners said they would keep the company in Las Vegas. The local office has 52 employees.

Travelworm is a small company competing against industry giants Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Hotels.com and Priceline.com and local companies VEGAS.com and lasvegas.com.

Song expansion delayed

ATLANTA -- Launched in April as part of a plan to return Delta Air Lines to profitability, discount airline Song's cross-country expansion has been put on hold while its struggling parent company seeks other ways to cut costs.

Song, designed to give Delta an answer to such low-fare alternatives as JetBlue Airways and AirTran, based its business on flights from the Northeast to Florida, and included Las Vegas flights, but had been expected to add cross-country routes from New York.

Instead, Delta's new Chief Executive Gerald Grinstein is taking a second look at those expansion plans while the company continues to seek wage concessions in its ongoing talks with its pilots union. Company officials say the review of plans for Song is expected to be complete by June.

Carrier to offer online boarding passes

Southwest Airlines, the busiest airline at Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport, is now offering Internet boarding passes for its customers.

The airline announced today that passengers can print their boarding passes for flights on the day of travel at the company's Internet site, www.southwest.com.

Productivity growth slows

WASHINGTON -- The increase in the productivity of America's workers slowed in the final three months of 2003, advancing at a 2.7 percent annual rate -- a still respectable pace that bodes well for the economy's strengthening recovery.

The increase came after productivity -- the amount an employee produces per hour of work -- rocketed at a 9.5 percent rate in the third quarter, the Labor Department reported today.

Although the fourth-quarter's productivity performance was weaker than the 3.4 percent growth rate that economists were forecasting, it still marked a decent pace. Analysts are hopeful that companies -- after having squeezed so much efficiency out of existing workers last year -- will now expand their ranks of workers.

Chains reject arbitration

LOS ANGELES -- Supermarket chains involved in a four-month strike-lockout with Southern California grocery clerks rejected an offer from the workers' union Wednesday.

The union offer would have allowed members to return to work immediately if the companies would agree to binding arbitration.