Tacoma's BLRB Architects has won a spot on a new list of the 200 fastest-growing architecture, engineering and environmental consulting firms in the country.

That list is published by management consulting and research firm ZweigWhite.

The company's Hot Firm List is based on gross revenus for 2005 and 2008.

Bellevue on-line travel agency Expedia.com will help travelers select the best available airline seats with the help of a new partnership with SeatGuru.

SeatGuru, a service of TripAdvisor, offers reviews of airline seats from travelers who've actually sat in them.

The new service will integrate SeatGuru's seat ratings with the seat maps offered on Expedia to select airline seats in advance.

The reviews will help travelers find seats that offer extra legroom or a quiet spot on the plan and help them avoid seats without windows are with restricted reclining capabilities.

In one of the best weeks in a disappointed sales year, Boeing won orders for 23 new jets last week, the company reported.

Those new orders, five 777s from Ethiopian Airlines, seven 777s from Turkish Airlines and 11 737s from unidentified customers, raises Boeing's new total for the year to 40 net orders.

The company has booked orders for 129 new airliners, but has lost 89 prior orders to cancellations. Most of those cancellations, 73, were for 787 Dreamliners, a plane already two years late with its first delivery.

New figures from the federal government's Bureau of Transportation Statistics show that Washington ranks eighth among the states in surface trade with Canada.

Those statistics show that $1.052 billion in goods crossed the border by truck or train from Washington in May.

Topping the list of states exporting to Canada was Michigan with $2.769 billion in trade with Canada in May.

Much of the Michigan trade was auto parts for Canadian assembly plants.

Second was Illinois, followed by California, New York, Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania. All are more populous than Washington.

Boeing Co. has completed its acquisition of a Charleston, S.C., plant that makes large fuselage sections for its oft-delayed 787 Dreamliner.

The company said the nearly $1 billion acquisition from Vought Aircraft Industries was completed Thursday.

Boeing bought the plant after Vought encountered technical and financial problems carrying out its contract to provide major sections of the composite-bodied aircraft.

Boeing had sent dozens of its own engineers millions of its own dollars to Vought when the company was unable to finish its projects on time.

The acquisition will give Boeing a more direct hand in getting the new plant producing efficiently.

Horizon Lines Inc., which provides American-flag containership service from Tacoma to Anchorage, reported this week that both its revenues and its profits declined from this time last year.

Horizon reported a loss of $31.1 million including one-time items on revenues of $278.5 million.

That compares with a $5.8 million profit in the second quarter of 2008 on revenues of $331 million.

Horizon, like most shipping lines, has seen its business decline because of the recession. The company said its container volume was down 9.8 percent.

The company's results were skewed in part by several special items including a $20 million charge regared a class action legal settlement regarding its service to Puerto Rico and an allowance of $10.5 million because of a tax valuation change.

Without those charges, the shipping line would have recorded a net profit of $4.1 million for its second quarter ending June 21.