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