Aloha Airlines closing tomorrow (3/31)
 

Breaking news from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin:

"Aloha Airlines is shutting down its passenger flight operations beginning tomorrow, ending 61-years of service in Hawaii. The airline will fly its full inter-island schedule, but will be shutting down at the end of the day. Transpacific flights to the mainland are canceled. But flights returning to Honolulu tomorrow will still be flown."

Full article is here:
http://starbulletin.com/breaking/breaking.php?id=6889

Wow. Awful. Almost 2,000 employees out of work.

If go! goes under that will leave only Hawaiian. Anyone know the status of their appeal of the $80 million judgement against them?

Gosh, I hate to hear this bad news! I'm hoping the best for the employees.

dark days in paradise

Unfortunately in the current economic atmosphere not every company that goes into bankruptcy will necessarily emerge from it and stay in business.

We had tickets on ALoha for April 26th, we were able to re-book on Hawaiina for the same price. If you have tickets and paid by credit card then you can dispute the charges. I feel bad for the employees. Hopefully they can find work soon.

Well, it's not just the 1900+ employees that this affects...they have some big accounts with vendors (juice, advertising, supplies, etc.) locally who will suffer from the ripple effect.

Dammm. I loved Aloha Airlines.

I am truly sorry for their great crew, pilots, and ground staff. They were so fun and caring to fly with.

Mels, it is a very big ripple effect. Last week Molokai, this week Aloha.....dark days indeed.

Guess I better get my akahine in gear and give some of my hard earned dollars back to the islands.

Well, I posted this on the other thread, but it's apropos here.

Well, Go! airlines got what they wanted. Now it's them and Hawaiian.

I guess we'll soon see just how much they really care about us poor Hawaii folk and the outrageous prices we were being charged for inter-island service (their reasoning for coming in and undercutting the competition, even though Go! themselves was losing money with those prices).

My guess is they (along with Hawaiian) will soon have their rates up as high as (if not higher) then when it was just Hawaiian and Aloha.

I don't mind Go! as a competitor, but their CEO's attitude and arrogance coming in here, really turned me off.

My mother is a 40+ year employee of Aloha, so as far back as I can remember, Aloha Airlines and its employees have been a part of my family.

We heard about the closure the night before the announcement was made to the public and it was shocking - we didn't expect it to happen so fast.

There are lots of people going in to work today hoping to hear that they will be needed at least for a couple more months for the shut down. Unfortunately many will find out today is their last day.

I can bet that Southwest is working on a plan to move service to the islands. If that happens, so goodbye to go!

gyppielou has the right idea. Kauai here I come!

I too was surprised when we heard this on the late news last night. I knew about the bankruptcy but honestly didn't think they'd shut down. Flew with them to Honolulu last September and thought the flight and service was fine.

We've also flown with Hawaiian and have a friend who works there, but I hate to see only "one" airline in Hawaii. Competition usually makes things better for the passengers.

Southwest already has flights to Hawaii through their website, flown by ATA. Wish they would actually fly there from the mainland. Time will tell.

Wishing the best for all the people affected by this.

gyppie--We did our part. We dropped lots of $ in Oahu last week, and will do the same next year too:)

I heard in the news, Hawaiian will honor Aloha tickets on a stand-by basis. And United, I think, will allow discounted reservations for ticket holders so people can come back from Hawaii one-way.

It may be an interesting trip to go standby with Hawaiian right now. You may be waiting all day to fly. Since we are flying inter-island next week, I am sucking it up and paying for a ticket on Hawaiian for the three of us and then I guess I have to hash it out to get my $400 back for the Aloha tickets. The good thing is ATA has that money right now, not Aloha!

We had tickets with Aloha for July for inter-island only travel. Hearing nothing concrete, we canceled with our credit card company (easiest way to get the full refund).

In addition to Go! and Hawaiian, Island Air is an alternative, right?

Island Air is an alternative. They fly only prop planes and have a limited schedule though.

I'm not sure what to do with our ticket situation!

We have one-way tickets to Hawaii on Hawaiian, and one-way return tickets on Aloha in August... flying from San Diego.

I have called AMEX to dispute the charges for the one-way tickets on Aloha.

I looked on the Hawaiian website last night (after calling them) and the one-way ticket price is more than double what we paid for the Aloha tix. So I called United tonight... their one-way, lowest price deal for Aloha customers is something like 5x the price we paid! Even ATA is a little less than double the price we paid.

We have a family of 4 so the price difference is adding up. We booked the Hawaii trip based on the affordable airfare that is no longer there. It wouldn't be so bad except we're also going on a vacation next week (spring break) so we don't really have the funds for the higher airfare to get home from Hawaii!

Now I'm not sure what to do. Any ideas? Wait and see if there is a Hawaiian sale? Call and see if I can get Hawaiian to refund our tickets and cancel the trip... I don't think they'll do that as they are the usual non-refundable, non-transferable type tickets. And, no... I didn't purchase the "cancel for any reason" trip insurance.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks.

Carole

Carole,
In my experience, airfare does not go down from Spring to Summer - it only goes up as your trip approaches.

I think some of the buzz you'll hear is that other airlines are just waiting to help out passengers stuck with Aloha tickets. But I think this only means they'll take your money and give you a ticket. Aloha is in bankruptcy, so they will not be sending money to any other airline to cover their ticketholders. You might see a discount here and there from other airlines, and I could be mistaken about all this....but I suggest you get replacement tickets as soon as you can at a price you can afford. If you wait, your options will be limited.

Look on the brightside - you paid by CC and you'll get your money back.

Just my 2 cents...

Max

Thanks Max,

Ugh.... I was thinking the same thing based on the posts above! I would have not booked this trip in the 1st place for the price we're paying now. I wish I would have booked both legs with one carrier... they were both similarly priced last November when I booked, but I split the reservation to save a little money. Double ugh....

Carole

Unfortunaately one reason that Aloha is in bankruptcy is due to the low fares they were offering. When I booked in Feb for April Aloha was higher (thank goodness) than ATA and other carriers so we booked with ATA. The bad thing is we did book Aloha inter-island so we are working on getting that money back but in the meantime I booked with Hawaiian at a comparable rate.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 1, 2008

<b>AIRLINES SERVING HAWAII FILLING GAP CAUSED BY SHUT DOWN OF ALOHA AIRLINES
<i>Visitors To and Around Hawaii Should Have Little Trouble Finding Flights</i></b>

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-

ttt

And now ATA has shut down....

This is why I always use a credit card (not debit) to buy airline tickets!

Just noted this morning that ATA has now filed for bankruptcy. That means that Southwest no longer has a partner going to Hawai, and one less airline as a possibility for those with Aloha tickets scrambling to make other arrangements. It's all a dirty shame!