Aloha Airlines said that it will halt all passenger service after today, signaling the end of an airline that has served Hawaii for more than 60 years, the Associated Press reported today. Aloha, which filed for bankruptcy for chapter 11 protection on March 20, was a casualty of fierce competition and rising fuel prices. The airline said it will stop taking reservations for flights after Monday. ”We simply ran out of time to find a qualified buyer or secure continued financing for our passenger business,” said Aloha President David Banmiller. Aloha said that tickets for flights after today will not be honored, and that it is working to have UAL Inc.’s United Airlines accommodate passengers with tickets for Aloha’s mainland to Hawaii flights and hopes to seat those with interisland tickets on Hawaiian Airlines Inc.

GMAC LLC named Alvaro G. de Molina to succeed Eric Feldstein to be its CEO effective April 1, the Wall Street Journal reported. De Molina had been chief financial officer at Bank of America until he was hired as GMAC’s chief operating officer in August. De Molina said that he believes the worst of the troubles with GMAC’s mortgage business are over and GMAC sees “realizable value” in it over the long-term. The business, called Residential Capital LLC, or ResCap, led the company into big losses due to mortgage defaults. While de Molina concedes there could be more losses related to the company’s exposure to subprime mortgages and other assets, he said “the idiosyncratic issues at ResCap are behind us.” GMAC is 51 percent controlled by private-equity concern Cerberus Capital Management LLP.

Bankrupt W.R. Grace & Co. has struck a deal with the U.S. government that would split the costs of cleaning up hazardous substances that contaminated a site near Baltimore, Bankruptcy Law360 reported yesterday. The government had wanted the specialty chemicals firm to pay $102 million for cleaning up W.R. Grace’s Curtis Bay site, where monazite sand was processed in the 1950s under a contract with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Without admitting any liability, W.R. Grace said the Army Corps will have an allowed administrative expense claim of $750,000 for all post-petition past costs. The United States has agreed to pay 60 percent of any other costs incurred during the performance of response actions to the site, and W.R. Grace will pay for 40 percent of the costs.