http://m.hawaiinewsnow.com/hawaiinewsno ... d=nTwXozU0

It is hard to believe that it has been 10 years since Aloha Airlines’ final flight, AQ261, landed at HNL. I am proud to say I was on that flight and it is definitely an experience I will never forget.

Aloha was my favorite airline and it was sad to see them go, but they went out with class, style and the spirit of Aloha!!!

Here’s a link to a Trip Report of my experience on AQ261 on March 31, 2008:
viewtopic.php?t=963757

-Aloha!

aloha73g wrote:

It is hard to believe that it has been 10 years since Aloha Airlines’ final flight, AQ261, landed at HNL. I am proud to say I was on that flight and it is definitely an experience I will never forget.

Wow, 10 years already? Seems like it was only yesterday that news of Aloha's demise broke. What has been the effect of the demise of Aloha and go! on inter-island fares in Hawaii? Has HA completely picked up the slack?

Didn't AQ pioneer the use of 737's across the Pacific between HI and mainland? The only other airline I remember doing the same thing was Air Pacific with 737-800's between HNL and YVR.

Their most interesting route was the RNO-SNA-Hawaii flight. Hopefully we see Hawaiian return to RNO nonstop.

another interesting routing they did was SMF-BUR-OGG RT.
Pretty amazing today that there isn't any LA area-Hawaii service
besides LAX.

friendlyskies22 wrote:

another interesting routing they did was SMF-BUR-OGG RT.
Pretty amazing today that there isn't any LA area-Hawaii service
besides LAX.

Long Beach starts this summer on the Hawaiian A321neo.

BUR and SNA have short runways that make Hawaii flights a challenge. Probably needs to be a 737-700, which is harder to make money with on the long flight than the -800.

ONT’s runways and terminals can take anything, the trouble is filling it and making money. Hawaiian has tried before but with the 767 which is too big. Maybe with the A321neo they’ll try again, or Southwest might give it a shot.

globetrotter94 wrote:

aloha73g wrote:

It is hard to believe that it has been 10 years since Aloha Airlines’ final flight, AQ261, landed at HNL. I am proud to say I was on that flight and it is definitely an experience I will never forget.

Wow, 10 years already? Seems like it was only yesterday that news of Aloha's demise broke. What has been the effect of the demise of Aloha and go! on inter-island fares in Hawaii? Has HA completely picked up the slack?

I really don't think there's been any negative impact, even now that Island Air went bust. And I do believe HA has picked-up any slack.

When it was just Aloha and Hawaiian roundtrips between islands were around 140. When it was go!, HA, Aloha, island air, and mokulele with the embraers you could get a roundtrip for about 70$ iirc. Now its basically just Hawaiian and a roundtrip is 120-150. HA has been really good at not gouging the market, even though every local will still complain about the fares not realizing that Hawaiian could charge twice the price if they wanted to

Password wrote:

When it was just Aloha and Hawaiian roundtrips between islands were around 140. When it was go!, HA, Aloha, island air, and mokulele with the embraers you could get a roundtrip for about 70$ iirc. Now its basically just Hawaiian and a roundtrip is 120-150. HA has been really good at not gouging the market, even though every local will still complain about the fares not realizing that Hawaiian could charge twice the price if they wanted to

$70 was unprofitable which is why all the small players failed in that “competitive” market.

This is a major problem with the distorted form of capitalism we have today. I rational market is not one where an investor group is willing to throw tons of money into a money losing endeavor to drive out competition. That’s a corrupt market, and frankly, in an industry as heavily regulated as aviation in terms of barriers to entry and licensing, there needs to be some form of anti-dumping regulation, be it from major airlines trying to squeeze out competition, or from overfunded VC airlines trying to destroy established players.

And then a week later, TZ went bust...

My only flight on AQ was BUR-LAS...not a bad flight at all...

I’m surprised nobody resurrected it.

UA444 wrote:

I’m surprised nobody resurrected it.

Mesa actually tried to buy the Aloha name and would have rebranded “go!” to “Aloha”. Even the bankruptcy judge overseeing Aloha’s liquidation thought it was a bad idea.

Can’t believe it’s already been ten years. Crazy. While I only worked for AQ three years, it was, by far, my favorite airline I’ve ever worked for.

I’m at HA now and I really enjoy it but it isn’t the same. There’s a handful of us who worked together at AQ at my station and we continuously swap stories of our Aloha days. There definetly is a special bond between us.

Thanks for posting your trip report again. Made for a good read.

As sad as it was there was never an adequate market for two Hawaiian based airlines


Aloha and Hawaiian beat each other up for decades chasing too few travelers with too many seats and they both suffered, losing
money most of the time or barely breaking even


Better to have one healthy airline as HA is
today than two that can barely survive

Max Q wrote:

As sad as it was there was never an adequate market for two Hawaiian based airlines


Aloha and Hawaiian beat each other up for decades chasing too few travelers with too many seats and they both suffered, losing
money most of the time or barely breaking even


Better to have one healthy airline as HA is
today than two that can barely survive

Agreed 100%. And it doesn’t just apply to airlines either in this State. It’s what we like to call a “1.5 business State”. In some industries, there’s enough business for 1.5 players, but to be the one with the 0.5 business is the pits. Best to leave it to one major player and maintain the peace, so to speak.

Though to be fair, Island Air was good at being that half-business. Shame that a variety of factors led to their demise...but that’s not uncommon here, sadly.

ikramerica wrote:

Password wrote:

When it was just Aloha and Hawaiian roundtrips between islands were around 140. When it was go!, HA, Aloha, island air, and mokulele with the embraers you could get a roundtrip for about 70$ iirc. Now its basically just Hawaiian and a roundtrip is 120-150. HA has been really good at not gouging the market, even though every local will still complain about the fares not realizing that Hawaiian could charge twice the price if they wanted to

$70 was unprofitable which is why all the small players failed in that “competitive” market.

This is a major problem with the distorted form of capitalism we have today. I rational market is not one where an investor group is willing to throw tons of money into a money losing endeavor to drive out competition. That’s a corrupt market, and frankly, in an industry as heavily regulated as aviation in terms of barriers to entry and licensing, there needs to be some form of anti-dumping regulation, be it from major airlines trying to squeeze out competition, or from overfunded VC airlines trying to destroy established players.

I don't disagree there were distortions due to investors being seduced into investing in airlines basically because they were considered "sexy". There are many examples out there and not going to name them all, but here's a few recent examples, Progressive Insurance and SkyBus, Alabama Retirement Systems and US Airways, Hooters Air, Independence Air, etc. Fortunately, I think the market has pretty much learned it's lesson at this point after all the failures and we don't need any regulations. Ultimately, if you get too heavy-handed, you can prevent legitimate new entrants from entering the market.

Iirc there were 3 or 4 airlines that went bust in the week AQ did: TZ AQ (didn't DHL shut their US airline down and contracted all us flying out that week? I sorta remember talking to an FL pilot in the break room in TPA about them. Ithink there could be another airline too. I seem to be thinking 4 bent bust but i cant remember.

airtrantpa wrote:

Iirc there were 3 or 4 airlines that went bust in the week AQ did: TZ AQ (didn't DHL shut their US airline down and contracted all us flying out that week? I sorta remember talking to an FL pilot in the break room in TPA about them. Ithink there could be another airline too. I seem to be thinking 4 bent bust but i cant remember.

Skybus!

One of my biggest fails when it comes to flight choices. I could have flown on Aloha's 732s in 2008, but opted for two HA flights on 717s instead. Because I was horrified of the age of the planes, what an idiot! Luckily, I got to fly on the 732 a couple of years later with Bahamasair.

At least the air cargo division of Aloha survives and has been flying 737 to this day as Aloha Air Cargo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Air_Cargo

raylee67 wrote:

At least the air cargo division of Aloha survives and has been flying 737 to this day as Aloha Air Cargo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Air_Cargo

They also have a 763C (in full KH (Aloha) colors). I believe it is operated by ATI on behalf of Aloha.

77H

There was AQ, TZ, Skybus and Champion air all folding that last week of March/first week of April 2008.

FLIHGH wrote:

airtrantpa wrote:

Iirc there were 3 or 4 airlines that went bust in the week AQ did: TZ AQ (didn't DHL shut their US airline down and contracted all us flying out that week? I sorta remember talking to an FL pilot in the break room in TPA about them. Ithink there could be another airline too. I seem to be thinking 4 bent bust but i cant remember.

Skybus!

Champion Air announced they were ceasing ops on March 31 2008, the final flight was May 31 though.

Password wrote:

When it was just Aloha and Hawaiian roundtrips between islands were around 140. When it was go!, HA, Aloha, island air, and mokulele with the embraers you could get a roundtrip for about 70$ iirc. Now its basically just Hawaiian and a roundtrip is 120-150. HA has been really good at not gouging the market, even though every local will still complain about the fares not realizing that Hawaiian could charge twice the price if they wanted to

One thing that has changed is that all routes are now priced individually (instead of the flat rate under the old coupon system) with HNL-LIH/OGG being the cheapest; HNL-KOA usually about $10 more; and HNL-ITO being the most expensive. For instance AQ had $58 coupons for the their 58th anniversary in 2004, so a roundtrip on any route would have been $116.

The $120-$150 roundtrip price you quoted is usually the "cheapest" available, but flying at more popular times (7-8am, mid-day, 4-6pm) or around weekends and holidays the prices are quite a bit more. I usually fly to/from Hilo to visit family and generally the average round trip price I pay is $200 plus or minus $10. I usually see OGG/LIH in the $160-$180 range and KOA in the $170-$190 range.

Either way, I don't think HA is gouging and I think that we are much better off as a state having one healthy airline instead of 2 struggling ones. It is too bad the HA/AQ merger proposed in 2001 did not come to fruition.

The Aloha Airlines shutdown is still the largest mass-layoff in the history of Hawai'i. Over 3,000 people lost their jobs.

-Aloha!

I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but I thought the last few years of AQ's existence was painful because they became such a sad, dying company.

My family were AQ loyalists for many, many years.
In fact, we would fly HA to the west coast (pre-2000/AQ mainland flights), but use AQ for the interisland flight to connect to the HA flt.

But, in the last few years it was hard to be loyal to AQ.
Planes were old, dirty, lots of duct tape in the cabin, flights were late, and the staff were unprofessional (behavior, looks) compared to the past.

I always wonder where and when things went wrong.
I know they had a no re-hire policy where if you ever left, you could never be rehired.
I wonder if that contributed to anything.
It really felt that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel w/ new employee hires towards the end (referring to the 2006 period).

My cousin (non Av-geek, low maintenance) summarized it best when she said "Aloha is so ghetto now."

I still wonder what Hawaii's hometown airline would look like now had AQ and HA merged which would have been the best outcome.

Too bad their 737-200's weren't scrapped back 10 years ago, but no, they are still flying as Aloha Air Cargo,
waking up HawaII residents with those JT8D's blasting at fun times like midnight and 5 am daily.

Interesting to read this thread from the former Aloha lounge at HNL right now. Have a few hours between flights and my HA-F inter island ticket granted me access. Was nice to see the murials still exist on the Makai pier.

Aloha had its faults, which is one reason many airlines didn't want to invest in them or try to fix them - some had tried. Hawaiians, by nature, are against any type of change whatsoever. I've worked with many kama'aina, and I can tell you the absolute *last* thing you can tell a kama'aina is how to do things, let alone find a better way of doing it. They are creatures of comfort and want to keep things going the way they've always known and done it - which, fortunate for many, is with a smile (spirit of Aloha), ease, and beneficial to both the customer and company. The problems arose well before go! came into the market, but they were the final push as go! competed much, much better (and I'm not talking about the highly limited $9 - $39 fares). go! and Hawaiian both had invested in technology and systems, including dynamic pricing and revenue management (one key item that even helped Mokulele when it had jets - it used Radixx and could change prices on a whim, whereas go! and Hawaiian had to wait for an ATPCO filing).

Aloha was already getting tons of pressure from ATA/Southwest and others - the inter-island market was highly profitable (but also expensive). Aloha was also in panic mode and was selling last minute inter-island seats for $39 - $59 on a regular basis, when both HA and YV were pricing at $85ish or more. A friend that was a travel agent for the military even said he was able to get the last seat on a plane for $39 (showed 1 in all the buckets) on a Friday once. That is NOT good business. Even Island Air, in their final days, were pricing seats at the absolute lowest fares to get in as much cash as possible.

When United said they weren't going to invest in AQ, I think that was the true deathnail on them.

AQ was a fun airline, with a lot of spirit and loyal employees & customers. However, a return would not be the same.

friendlyskies22 wrote:

Too bad their 737-200's weren't scrapped back 10 years ago, but no, they are still flying as Aloha Air Cargo,
waking up HawaII residents with those JT8D's blasting at fun times like midnight and 5 am daily.

Aloha hasn’t had 732’s for about a year now. They were replaced with 733’s. TransAir still has 732’s. Military traffic is much more of a noise nuisance.

77H

usxguy wrote:

Interesting to read this thread from the former Aloha lounge at HNL right now. Have a few hours between flights and my HA-F inter island ticket granted me access. Was nice to see the murials still exist on the Makai pier.

Aloha had its faults, which is one reason many airlines didn't want to invest in them or try to fix them - some had tried. Hawaiians, by nature, are against any type of change whatsoever. I've worked with many kama'aina, and I can tell you the absolute *last* thing you can tell a kama'aina is how to do things, let alone find a better way of doing it. They are creatures of comfort and want to keep things going the way they've always known and done it - which, fortunate for many, is with a smile (spirit of Aloha), ease, and beneficial to both the customer and company. The problems arose well before go! came into the market, but they were the final push as go! competed much, much better (and I'm not talking about the highly limited $9 - $39 fares). go! and Hawaiian both had invested in technology and systems, including dynamic pricing and revenue management (one key item that even helped Mokulele when it had jets - it used Radixx and could change prices on a whim, whereas go! and Hawaiian had to wait for an ATPCO filing).

Aloha was already getting tons of pressure from ATA/Southwest and others - the inter-island market was highly profitable (but also expensive). Aloha was also in panic mode and was selling last minute inter-island seats for $39 - $59 on a regular basis, when both HA and YV were pricing at $85ish or more. A friend that was a travel agent for the military even said he was able to get the last seat on a plane for $39 (showed 1 in all the buckets) on a Friday once. That is NOT good business. Even Island Air, in their final days, were pricing seats at the absolute lowest fares to get in as much cash as possible.

When United said they weren't going to invest in AQ, I think that was the true deathnail on them.

AQ was a fun airline, with a lot of spirit and loyal employees & customers. However, a return would not be the same.

I think the second paragraph about the local mindset hits the nail on the head. Like it or not we are a global society and Hawaii is not a closed circuit. I subscribe to the “go with what you know” mindset for somethings but we can’t allow ourselves to fall too far behind in innovation and modernization which is why Hawaii politicians have often had to resort to protectionist practices to block competition from the Hawaii market. I was just talking to my brother about how terrible the local banking institutions can be. With no competition, they can institute whatever policies and fees they want and people have not choice but to bank with them. Say nothing of their staffing. I’ve been in an out of the DMV faster than waiting in line to deposit a check at BankoH.

I think another issue is that many locals never leave the island chain. I know countless people who have never left Hawaii or even the island they were born on. This leads to a very narrow minded perspective. I used to sell residential solar on Oahu and called what I thought was an interested, prospective customer who told me once on the phone again me he had no interest and that his grandparents paid the utility (HECO) his parents paid the utility and he had no interest in doing it any differently even after laying down the numbers that his family could save hundreds a month.

I just read an article a few weeks ago that Hawaii is ranked in the bottom-5 least innovative states. This is not good news for a state with an increasing homeless population, still dismal graduation rate and ever increasing cost of living.

77H

i am originally from Hawai'i but live in Vancouver and i wish i had flown their YVR - HNL flight when they had it. I heard it was great service with those famous baked on board cookies. They did pioneer 737 flights to the islands long before the likes of WestJet and others.

Aloha Airlines still lives on through cargo ops though, don't they? That means that Sunday was the 10 year anniversary since SkyBus folded too. Who remembers them?

77H wrote:

usxguy wrote:

Interesting to read this thread from the former Aloha lounge at HNL right now. Have a few hours between flights and my HA-F inter island ticket granted me access. Was nice to see the murials still exist on the Makai pier.

Aloha had its faults, which is one reason many airlines didn't want to invest in them or try to fix them - some had tried. Hawaiians, by nature, are against any type of change whatsoever. I've worked with many kama'aina, and I can tell you the absolute *last* thing you can tell a kama'aina is how to do things, let alone find a better way of doing it. They are creatures of comfort and want to keep things going the way they've always known and done it - which, fortunate for many, is with a smile (spirit of Aloha), ease, and beneficial to both the customer and company. The problems arose well before go! came into the market, but they were the final push as go! competed much, much better (and I'm not talking about the highly limited $9 - $39 fares). go! and Hawaiian both had invested in technology and systems, including dynamic pricing and revenue management (one key item that even helped Mokulele when it had jets - it used Radixx and could change prices on a whim, whereas go! and Hawaiian had to wait for an ATPCO filing).

Aloha was already getting tons of pressure from ATA/Southwest and others - the inter-island market was highly profitable (but also expensive). Aloha was also in panic mode and was selling last minute inter-island seats for $39 - $59 on a regular basis, when both HA and YV were pricing at $85ish or more. A friend that was a travel agent for the military even said he was able to get the last seat on a plane for $39 (showed 1 in all the buckets) on a Friday once. That is NOT good business. Even Island Air, in their final days, were pricing seats at the absolute lowest fares to get in as much cash as possible.

When United said they weren't going to invest in AQ, I think that was the true deathnail on them.

AQ was a fun airline, with a lot of spirit and loyal employees & customers. However, a return would not be the same.

I think the second paragraph about the local mindset hits the nail on the head. Like it or not we are a global society and Hawaii is not a closed circuit. I subscribe to the “go with what you know” mindset for somethings but we can’t allow ourselves to fall too far behind in innovation and modernization which is why Hawaii politicians have often had to resort to protectionist practices to block competition from the Hawaii market. I was just talking to my brother about how terrible the local banking institutions can be. With no competition, they can institute whatever policies and fees they want and people have not choice but to bank with them. Say nothing of their staffing. I’ve been in an out of the DMV faster than waiting in line to deposit a check at BankoH.

I think another issue is that many locals never leave the island chain. I know countless people who have never left Hawaii or even the island they were born on. This leads to a very narrow minded perspective. I used to sell residential solar on Oahu and called what I thought was an interested, prospective customer who told me once on the phone again me he had no interest and that his grandparents paid the utility (HECO) his parents paid the utility and he had no interest in doing it any differently even after laying down the numbers that his family could save hundreds a month.

I just read an article a few weeks ago that Hawaii is ranked in the bottom-5 least innovative states. This is not good news for a state with an increasing homeless population, still dismal graduation rate and ever increasing cost of living.

77H

I have to fully agree with you. I was raised in Hawaii, went through school there from kindergarten through high school, and moved to the mainland. Always thought I'd come back until I went off to college on the Mainland, when it took me about 3 minutes to realize that what you've just said is absolutely true.

I flew Aloha inter-island many times; Hawaiian as well (going back to the AQ and HA DC3's, the AQ F-27's, BAC-111's and 732's, and Hawaiian's Convairs, Viscounts, and even DC6B interisland, and more recently the 717's. Ditto for Island Air's Dash 8's and ATR's. Aloha was a special airline in many ways, but no more special than some of the other ones we all miss, like Braniff, Pan Am, etc.

Jeff

evank516 wrote:

That means that Sunday was the 10 year anniversary since SkyBus folded too. Who remembers them?

For all the wrong reasons...good riddance to them.

Was that the last airline David Banmiller shut down? He was at Sun Country when they went Ch 11, not sure if that was before or after. Little written about him and the demise - but it is known that UA and ATA and Aloha had a preliminary deal to give 20 or so 73H's from TZ to AQ with funding from UA. UA reportedly reneged when the economy really hit the shitter.

You can grab a bit of AQ history by buying a luggage tag made from the skin of N823AL (the special Funbird livery AQ jet) at https://planetags.com

They have lots of other tags from other aircraft from the boneyards too.

UA had some sort of relationship with AQ at the time and owned a tiny part of the company IIRC.