OKOLE AIRLINES

We who live in Hawaii and need to get to a neighbor island the only way available to traverse water besides canoes, have heard the bankruptcy story from Hawaiian Airlines and Aloha Airlines, our two inter island airline carriers, pleaded ad nostrum to us...the latest rendition being from Aloha Airlines. If these companies can’t stay solvent despite charging $100.00 for a seat aboard their airplanes for a 20-minute hop to another island, they ought to sell off their aircraft for scrape metal and get out of the airline passenger business. Surely the price of aviation fuel has risen drastically and impacted their profit margins. And 9/11 devasted the airline industry worldwide. However, our twin inter island airlines, in addition to being a joint monopoly, are indistinguishable from a public utility company. But at least, so far, the local electric and gas companies have not put out mayday calls that they were sinking below their equivalent of an airline’s commercial tarmac, a situation which our inter island carriers portray as operating on financial quicksand, only reinforcing the perception that the local hold of them as habitual flounders.

While our two belly up airlines continue to operate under bankruptcy protection, it perplexes my coconut why their service has expansions to Las Vegas and Burbank, instead of keeping the focus on their bread-and-butter instate destinations. Why? Because the companies have to purchase additional aircraft to supplement these routes and new aircraft have to be paid for, and even though leasing arrangements with the aircraft manufacturer don't otherwise necessitate a large fee simple down payment, and the mainland routes may be profitable, management has to cover too many bases to be able to properly mind the store at home. Especially when as a cost cutting measure the airlines have reduced their management staff.  Plus, there might be some retaliation from the mainland-based airlines upon whose turf they enroach manifested through methods other than bad karma, like the mainland airlines using their political connections to influence regulations adverse to our local carriers in the end being imposed locally. We need a Bird of Prey to simplify things for the kamainas.