TRANSPORTATION

Hawaiian Connection: Honolulu is 3,000 miles to the west but there is still a strong business link with Orange County (among other things, local companies such as Ocean Pacific and Quiksilver make half the Hawaiian shirts that are sold to tourists over there).

And it is getting stronger, as witnessed by these two transportation industry items:

* An investment group led by Newport Beach attorney J. Thomas Talbot is moving merrily along with its plans to acquire control of HAL Inc., the Honolulu holding company for Hawaiian Airlines and the West Maui Airport. Talbot said the recent tumult on Wall Street, sparked in part by the collapse of financing arrangements for the $6.7-billion United Airlines buyout, won’t affect his group’s more modest $22-million to $43-million bid for between 51% and 100% of HAL.

* A Santa Ana firm, Dave Systems Inc., is one of seven companies bidding for contracts to operate Honolulu’s municipal bus system. The current operator, MTL Inc., also is among the applicants, as are three Hawaiian tour companies--Gray Line Hawaii, Rainbow Tours Inc. and Robert’s Hawaii Inc.--and two more mainland firms, ATE Management and Service Co. Inc. of Cincinnati and Transit Marketing/Laidlaw Transit Inc. of Concord in Northern California. Dave Systems operates several municipal bus systems and dial-a-ride programs in California.