In an earlier post, I said good luck to all of us. Good luck didn’t happen. My primary concern was for the passengers that needed to travel interisland or to the mainland in the next couple weeks. I knew that they could be stuck. The news tonight displayed lots of folks stranded and no seats available on other airlines. It was an incredibility sad day for a lot of people in Hawaii. Half of the employees at Aloha Airlines had worked there more than 20 years and their coworkers had become family. It was a great place to work and everyone loved coming to work and seeing each other. In the end, it was the fare war by GO, the rising fuel prices and the older interisland planes that use a lot of gas that did us in. In 2006, there were plans to get new planes, but when the fare wars happened, too much money was being lost and the new planes never happened.
This time Chapter 11 was different. The current owners had been trying to reorganize for the last two years. During the first week of March 2008, management told a group of pilots in ground school that the company was getting new planes, expanding with another company and that there would be something in the paper within two weeks. However, around March 15th, the other company backed out of the deal and the present owners gave up. When Aloha filed Chapter 11, there were four companies looking to invest. Everyone thought that one of the companies would show up on March 31st at the court hearing and we would continue ops until things were reorganized. However, it came as a big surprise to everyone when Aloha announced on March 30th that they were shutting down.
The news tonight reported that Aloha reservations received 8000 calls, or more than twice the average of 4000 per day. A lot of employees came in on their off day to help out, but that didn’t solve all the problems. I am disappointed that United Airlines (Aloha’s code share business partner) didn’t do more, or pick up the Aloha Air miles. Those miles had always been transferable before. I had over 100,000 miles and it looks like they are gone. I feel the pain for everyone that had those miles.
I am selling my house that we bought three years ago, downsizing and moving on. However, I am probably better off than 90% of the people that I work with. It is a very painful day for a lot of people. I hope that everyone is able to get their money back from their credit card companies and that they are able to complete their vacation plans this year.
My sister was supposed to visit this June, and she wanted to fly from Honolulu to the big island. I told her to put her plans on hold another year and not to come out this year. Everyone will need to reconsider their options. I recommend avoid flying interisland until after summer 2008. It will be very difficult for Hawaiian and GO to pick up the extra passengers in the near future. The news reported that Aloha flies 8000 passengers on a daily basis and that Hawaiian and GO will increase service for an additional 6000 seats. So, what are the other 2000 people suppose to do??? Maybe United will come in with a couple flights to help out. In any event, all flights will be very full. Don’t miss your connection, or you could have major problems. If you are angry, please be angry at GO or Mesa, they caused this mess. They still owe Hawaiian $80 million and have to face Aloha in court during October 2008. They are in serious trouble.
I think that I can speak for all the employees at Aloha when I say “Thank you to everyone for flying Aloha over the years”. It was the best eight years of my life. To all our friends, I hope that our paths will cross again.
Aloha, Tom Palmer, Captain Aloha Airlines
This helps defray the $390 replacement tickets with Hawaiian that we had to purchase.