Airlines Serving Hawaii Filling Gap Caused by Shut Down of Aloha Airlines

Visitors To and Around Hawaii Should Have Little Trouble Finding Flights

HONOLULU – State tourism officials are confident that airlines providing flights between the U.S. mainland and Hawaii will quickly fill the void left by the sudden shut down of Honolulu-based carrier Aloha Airlines on Monday, March 31, and report that interisland airlines have moved swiftly to boost air travel capacity around the Hawaiian Islands.

Aloha Airlines filed for its second bankruptcy in three years on March 20. Reports that Aloha was short of cash and unlikely to find new investment money prompted other airlines to prepare contingency plans for its possible closure.

“It is a sad day for a great airline with a long history of serving Hawaii,” said John Monahan, president and CEO of the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau (HVCB). “However, the airline community serving Hawaii anticipated that this might happen and has been quick to fill the void left by Aloha’s closing.”

The amount of airline seats between the major Hawaiian Islands of Kauai, Oahu, Maui and Hawaii’s Big Island bulked up almost two years ago when go! airlines began providing service. As a consequence, there are three remaining airlines with significant capacity – Hawaiian Airlines, go! and Island Air – to pick up the slack left by Aloha’s shut down.  

Starting this morning, the three carriers added about 10,000 new seats to interisland service by flying more frequent schedules and by adding aircraft. This should adequately fill the gap left by Aloha, which would normally carry about 9,000 interisland passengers daily at this time of the year.

“There will be a lot more frequency of flights interisland, starting earlier in the morning, throughout the day, and ending later in the evening, and Hawaiian is even putting a 260-seat wide-body Boeing 767 on some routes as a temporary measure to fill the backlog,” said Monahan. “Some passengers holding Aloha Airlines tickets over the next few days may not get the exact flight time that they want, but they will get to their interisland destination within a reasonable time.”

Aloha was not a major carrier of passengers between Hawaii and the U.S. mainland. The company had about a six percent share of the transpacific market flying Boeing 737s to Oakland, San Diego, Sacramento, Orange County, Las Vegas and Reno.  Passengers who might have booked Aloha should not have difficulty finding alternate flights on other major carriers serving the West Coast including Hawaiian Airlines, United, American, Northwest, ATA, Continental, US Airways, Alaska Airlines and Delta.

“Initially there’s going to be a backlog of passengers wanting to return to mainland destinations served by Aloha. Our transpacific carriers are expecting to work through that phase in a couple of days after which things should pretty much return to normal,” said Monahan.

Visitors currently in Hawaii holding defunct Aloha Airlines’ tickets have been offered special deals by almost all of the airlines enabling them to fly for free on a standby basis between the islands and on return flights to the mainland through Thursday this week.

HVCB has created a special webpage at GoHawaii.com/AlohaAirlines to inform stranded Aloha passengers about the various offers that are being provided by transpacific and interisland carriers.  

The page also contains special offers from many of Hawaii’s hotels and timeshare operators who are providing discounted rates to accommodate Aloha ticket holders who may have to stay extra nights before catching a flight home, or removing penalties for reservation-holders who may have to cancel their trip.

HVCB has also been in contact with the lodging community across the state to provide front desk staff with airline information to pass on to Aloha passengers.

On March 30, 2008, 10 days after placing itself under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Aloha Airlines announced that March 31, 2008, would be the last day of scheduled passenger services both on transpacific and interisland routes. The airline’s last scheduled passenger flight was Flight 261, from Kahului, Maui to Honolulu, Oahu.

Aloha Airlines has created a webpage providing answers to frequently asked questions at AlohaAirlines.com.

-pau-

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