BRIEFCASE DOLE RANKED NO. 2 IN CUSTOMER CARE.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

WESTLAKE VILLAGE - Dole Food Co. announced Friday that it is second among the 31 companies in the food, beverage and tobacco sector as ranked by The Customer Respect Group in its Winter 2003 Customer Respect Study.

The Customer Respect Group is an international research and consulting firm that focuses on how corporations treat their customers online based on 25 different attributes that create the online customer experience. Dole's Customer Respect Index was 8.9, while the average for the sector was 6.2.

Agilent to trim 4,000 more jobs

SAN JOSE - Agilent Technologies Inc., a leading maker of test and measurement equipment, will cut another 4,000 jobs, or more than 11 percent of its work force, after posting a wider fiscal first-quarter loss Friday.

The Palo Alto-based company, which eliminated 2,500 jobs in November and 8,000 jobs in late 2001, said uncertainty in the economy has continued to weaken demand for its products.

``Our first-quarter results were disappointing,'' said Ned Barnholt, Agilent's chairman and chief executive. ``Orders were weaker than expected due to a general climate of uncertainty. ... Based on these results, we are taking additional aggressive cost-cutting actions to return Agilent to profitability during the second half of this year.''

The company, which was spun off from Hewlett-Packard Co. in 1999, had 35,000 employees before the cuts.

McDonald's debt gets downgraded

CHICAGO - Moody's Investors Service downgraded McDonald's Corp.'s long-term senior unsecured debt on Friday, citing the company's second consecutive year of sliding same-store sales.

Moody's said the downgrade of the world's largest fast-food restaurant chain to A2 from Aa3 - still investment grade - also reflects a lower return on the company's assets. The rating agency also said it expects efforts to restore McDonald's vitality will take two years or more.

Last month, McDonald's posted its first-ever quarterly loss - $344 million - acknowledging complications from its fast expansion pace and complaints about speed and food quality in its U.S. restaurants.

US Airways' plan for pilots in peril

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - US Airways told a bankruptcy judge Friday that the company faces almost imminent liquidation if it is not permitted to terminate the pension plan for its 6,000 pilots.

The bankrupt airline faces a $1.6 billion gap over the next seven years between its pension assets and its liabilities, the company said Friday. Resolution of the issue is the last major hurdle it faces to meet its goal of emerging from bankruptcy by the end of March.