I don't know where I have been the past couple days, but I just heard about Aloha airlines.

As a former airline employee (and one who operated in bankruptcy for over 2 years and successfully emerged) I wasn't concerned about buying tickets on Aloha for October...and yes, we used a credit card...so we aren't concerned about getting a refund through our credit card.

My question is who to book on now...we will be flying Maui-Lihue.

Our choices are now either HA with a stop in Honolulu (annoying) or an Island Air direct flight for a few dollars more.

Does anyone have an opinion about Island Air? I don't know much about them...

We like them and would not hesitate to fly with them again.
You will want to read their luggage restrictions.

For a while the parent company of Aloha Airlines owned Island Air and the two airlines kind of regarded each other as "sister" companies. They have been separate for several years, but many Island Air employees still have (or rather, had) ties with Aloha.

Island Air flies turboprop planes, so they're smaller and a little slower than if you flew the same route on a bigger plane.

It's a perfectly fine airline to fly and I've never had a problem with them.

We used them from Honolulu to Maui and back last year. Great flights both ways.

In the last six months, I've flown Island Air and Hawaiian. Both airlines were fine and we didn't have any issues. Here are the main differences I recall:

- Hawaiian's planes were much larger.
- Hawaiian's planes seemed cleaner and newer in comparison.
- Hawaiian gave passengers a map of the island we were flying to.
- If mostly fly with carry-on, you'll be able to store your luggage in the overhead bins on the Hawaiian planes. With Island Air you have to do gate check roll aboards.

The inter-island flights are so short it almost doesn't matter who you fly with.