It’s time once again for the third annual edition of “Airlines We Lost.” This was a pretty active year, as you can probably imagine. Sadly, my wish last year for Alitalia to be on this year’s list has not come true. That airline soliders on while others have not been so lucky to have a government behind them to prop them up. As I said, last year, let us hope that all the former employees of these airlines find new jobs with ease. I’m probably taking Friday off, so I’ll be back again Monday. Happy New Year!


AlpiEagles – January 3, 2008


We were barely into 2008 when AlpiEagles became the first airline of the year to shut down. To be honest, I don’t know much about these guys, but if I couldn’t include Alitalia, I had to at least find one Italian airline. A Google search found some references that make me think it wasn’t much of a surprise that these guys went under. In fact, I’m somewhat amazed they lasted as long as they did.



Boston-Maine (Pan Am) – February 29, 2008

It’s not often that I’m happy to see an airline go out of business, but this is most certainly one of them. When the Pan Am name and colors were slapped on this two-bit outfit flying old 727s into backwater airports, it was an embarrassment. To make things even worse, this airline was effectively a union-buster that was given the Pan Am name and routes when the previous version of Pan Am was shut down by the parent company. Earlier this year, the DOT put out a scathing report that the airline was financially unfit, lacked proper management oversight, and didn’t follow rules.


Big Sky – March 8, 2008

Big Sky was a sad loss, at least for those who relied on the airline to get around the upper Midwest for years. Big Sky was acquired by Mesaba’s parent, but when Mesaba was sold to Northwest, the parent company wanted out of the airline business. The 19-seaters weren’t making much money, so it was time to call it quits. I remember when I was at America West and we signed a codeshare with Big Sky. There were very few airports they served that I’d even heard of before, but they were the lifeline for the people who lived in those places.



Adam Air – March 18, 2008

If anyone is actually surprised by this one, you must not pay much attention to aviation accidents. Adam Air came out of Indonesia and did a good job of convincing people not to fly it. There were a number of accidents and incidents over its relatively short life span, and ultimately the Indonesian government mercifully shut them down. We should all be able to sleep easier at night knowing that this airline is gone from the scene.



Aloha Airlines – March 31, 2008

For me, this is the saddest failure of the year. If this were the Academy Awards when they show the people who died in the last year, Aloha would undoubtedly get the loudest applause. The oldest airline to fail last year, Aloha succumbed to a brutal competitive environment thanks to the entry of go! into the Interisland Hawaiian market. Lawsuits have dragged on, but it appears they have recently been settled with the understanding that go!, the very airline that killed Aloha, will rebrand as Aloha. This was so unpalatable that even the judge put a temporary stop to it.



ATA – April 3, 2008

Though ATA was an airline that many people hated, I actually never had a bad experience flying them. In fact, I always had good experiences. They reached their zenith in the early 2000s as they grew their Chicago and Indianapolis hubs under now-United drone John Tague but collapsed mightily soon after. Southwest picked up the remains, and the airline limped along for awhile, but ultimately, the owners bought a couple other airlines and shut down the original. A sad end for an airline with a long history.



Skybus – April 4, 2008

Ah yes, remember Skybus? It seems like it was only around for a few minutes, so you may have forgotten them by now. The idea was to offer ultra low fare flights originally only from its Columbus hub. Columbus? Yeah. That might go a long way to explain why it didn’t work. But this airline called it quits before it actually had to. In fact, there was money left in the bank, but the management decided it just wasn’t going to work in the end. By this time next year, we’ll probably have forgotten completely that they ever existed.



Skyway – April 5, 2008

Poor little Skyway, better known as Midwest Connect, died because of Midwest’s insistence on not actually flying any airplanes itself. Skyway was Midwest’s wholly-owned regional subsidiary, but Midwest decided it would rather have SkyWest operate the routes instead. So while Skyway lives on as a ground operations company, it no longer has any planes. Then again, Midwest doesn’t have many of its own planes left either.



Oasis HongKong – April 9, 2008

Like Skybus, Oasis HongKong had a meteoric rise only to come crashing down hard. The airline was running long haul, low fare flights between Hong Kong and both London and Vancouver. Apparently, it’s fares were too low, because one day it just disappeared. Many have argued that the long haul, low fare model doesn’t work, though Air Asia X is currently going to do its best to prove that hypothesis wrong. (Nonexistent labor costs help, by the way.)



Eos Airlines – April 26, 2008

There’s a special place for Eos in my eyes, because I interned with the airline during business school, long before it got started. In fact, it was just me and David Spurlock in a Palo Alto office working on getting funding for the airline back in 2003. The experience was great, but high fuel prices, a very small niche market, and, according to others, weak management, did the airline in. With fuel at today’s prices, it undoubtedly could have held on longer, but it’s not clear that it would have survived.



Nationwide Airlines – April 29, 2008

I’m sure there were a few thousand airlines in Africa that failed this year, but none had a higher profile than Nationwide. This airline, based in South Africa, grew to have a fairly sizable operation that even served London. In 2007, Nationwide was shut down for regulatory non-compliance, but it briefly came back. Of course, a temporary shut down like that is just as bad as being shut down for good, so it did just that and decided to call it quits.



Far Eastern Air Transport – May 12, 2008

I don’t know really know a ton about Far Eastern Air Transport except that their tails had FAT spelled out in big block letters. That’s good comedy. I was surprised to find that this airline was actually around for fifty years, primarily as a very strong domestic carrier in Taiwan. Increased competition (in the air and on the rails) put this airline into financial trouble, and it finally called it quits after struggling to the right the ship for awhile.



Silverjet – May 30, 2008

Like Eos, Silverjet tried to do the all-premium airline model and failed miserably. I’m told Silverjet had a very nice facility at London’s Luton airport, but that wasn’t enough to make it successful. Locating the airline at Luton probably didn’t help much either. Toward the end, there was all kinds of drama. It was said that a Middle Eastern firm would pump money into the airline and refocus it, but that never came through and the airline ran out of luck . . . and money.



Champion – May 31, 2008

Though Champion flew charters with its 727 fleet toward the end, its 2 letter code “MG” alludes to its roots as MGM Grand Air. MGM was a luxurious airline flying between LA and New York, but Champion did a lot of sports charters and some leisure work as well. In the end, the aging fleet wasn’t competitive in the charter market and the airline simply opted to shut down and go quietly into the night. Fortunately, it didn’t go away until after delaying the Spurs to a playoff game against the Lakers. Thanks, guys.



Air Midwest – June 30, 2008

Little Air Midwest was another casualty in the 19 seat aircraft market that really took a hit this year. This airline had been owned by Mesa for several years, and ultimately Mesa opted to completely shut down its 19 seat operation. I had the chance to fly Air Midwest on one of its little Beech 1900s from Yuma to Phoenix, and I certainly had no complaints. Then again, the weather was good that day. Were it not, I might have had a different opinion of the little airline.



ExpressJet (branded service) – September 1, 2008

Let’s get one thing clear. ExpressJet still exists and is still flying around as Continental Express and as a charter airline. The piece that died was the “branded” ExpressJet operation that was set up to fly point-to-point between smaller cities; sort of a Southwest Express in my mind. If Aloha’s failure tugged at the heartstrings, this one bothers the brain. This model still looks interesting to me, especially with lower fuel prices and a different aircraft type. I just think ExpressJet was ahead of its time on this one.



Zoom – August 28, 2008

This quirky airline had a very strange setup. The original airline was Canadian and began flying Transatlantic from Canada. Then they wanted to fly back across the Atlantic to the US from the UK so they set up a UK subsidiary to do the work. Flights went from London to places like San Diego, where no other nonstop service existed. The idea may have made sense in someone’s head, but it didn’t work at all. They collapsed under their own weight.



XL – September 12, 2008

You knew XL was set on being a low cost carrier when it decided that letters were too expensive and shortened its name from Excel. The British low cost charter operation focused on shuttling pasty white Brits to sunspots, but apparently it wasn’t concerned about getting them back when it stranded fifty thousand travelers after its shutdown. Another 200,000 had future bookings so this was likely a more expensive winter than many had planned.


AeroCalifornia – October 4, 2008

Wait, didn’t these guys already shut down? You know it, but somehow the Mexican airline didn’t make my 2006 list. AeroCalifornia operated aircraft so old they were actually flight tested by Charles Lindbergh (um, maybe not), but they were considered airworthy enough to fly to the US until 2006 when it first shut down. The airline made a brief comeback with only domestic Mexican operations, but that again ended abruptly when they ran out of money.



Sterling – October 29, 2008

Sterling quickly rose to be a massive low fare airline in Scandinavia and Europe in general, especially after acquiring Maersk. I flew Maersk once and loved the product, but Sterling had plenty of ownership shifts and never fully found its groove. It didn’t help that its most recent owners were Icelandic, not exactly a good place to be from a financial perspective these days. Cimber Air says it’s going to resurrect the airline, but, well, we’ll see about that.



European – November 30, 2008

Oh man, am I finally done? European wouldn’t get a mention here except for two things. First, it was one of the last operators (if not the last) of the 737-200 in Europe. And second, it operated for Palmair, an airline I really enjoyed learning about this year. Palmair was surprised by the failure of European, but it has found an aircraft from Jet2 to pick up the slack for now. Meanwhile, European will probably disappear quietly without any fanfare at all.

[Airlines We Lost in 2007]
[Airlines We Lost in 2006]

Mesa Settles Aloha Lawsuit, Wants to Use Aloha Name
Mesa wants to use the name of its now vanquished rival, Aloha, on its airplanes. There are so many reasons this is a bad idea, it’s not even funny.

Continental’s November Traffic Performance Shows Ominous Signs
Even Continental’s revised unit revenue estimates were too high for reality. The airline delivered a very anemic performance that should concern everyone.

Southwest Holds Capacity Steady, Sees Traffic Decline Sharply
Holy cow. Southwest’s capacity was steady, but it’s traffic fell off a cliff. There’s no question demand is heading down quickly.

Delta’s Self Serving Objections to the Continental/United Antitrust Application
Surprise, surprise. Delta isn’t happy about United, Continental, Lufthansa, and Air Canada’s proposal for world domination. They may say they’re standing up for the consumer, but I’d bet otherwise.

What Will Southwest Do With Its LaGuardia Slots?
Southwest has secured 7 flights a day to LaGuardia. Now everyone wants to know where they’ll go. That decision says a lot about how they view New York.

Delta Says Fuel Savings Can Offset 20 Percent Drop in Traffic
Delta released some very interesting numbers on the value of the drop in fuel prices. If you ever doubted it was huge, this will prove it to you.

Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. Monday it’s Aloha, Thursday it’s ATA, and now Saturday it’s Skybus. The airline flew its final flight last night, and now all the shiny new Airbii (um, let’s just pretend like that’s the plural of Airbus) are grounded. I think I speak for everyone who follows this industry when I say, “holy crap.”

It’s not the fact that these particular airlines went out of business that leaves me in shock. I mean, they were all sort of knocking on death’s door anyway. It’s the fact that ANY airline actually went out of business, let alone three of them. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that probably would have happened on a much larger scale earlier this decade had the government not stepped in, but they did. Now the industry is finally going to rationalize . . . I hope.

For travelers, this Skybus shutdown is a little better than the others. Skybus isn’t filing for bankruptcy until Monday, and if you believe USA Today, everyone who held tickets will be “eligible for a full refund.” Aloha and ATA travelers (including a few friends of mine) should only be so lucky.

This one also feels different for me personally. Though I have fond memories of ATA and Aloha from past travels, I never got the chance to fly Skybus. Heck, they didn’t even make it a full year. That being said, I’m not completely untouched by this one. Two of my friends work, er, worked at the airline. There are a lot of people out of work after these three shutdowns, and that’s a very sad thing.

So now Skybus is gone, probably doomed from trying to fly to too many secondary airports in mid-sized metro areas. I still think there’s potential for Gary (outside Chicago) to work one day, but they barely even touched that airport. Columbus just didn’t seem like the right place, let alone Greensboro. So, they’re gone. Who’s next?

(Original image)

You may remember that I said last week that I probably wouldn’t book a flight on Aloha for travel more than a couple weeks out. It looks like the airline won’t even make it that long.

Aloha has announced that, not surprisingly, there just aren’t any investors to help keep the passenger business afloat. Today, March 31, will be the last day of operation for all passenger flights. The interisland schedule will operate as normal today, and flights FROM the mainland will go as planned as well. Flights TO the mainland won’t operate, and neither will flights within the mainland. The cargo and airport services divisions will continue to operate since there has been interest from outside parties in acquiring those.

It doesn’t matter if you think we have too much capacity in this country or not. When an airline with such a long and storied history as Aloha goes out of business, it’s just a sad day.

I will always remember Aloha under better circumstances. This photo, though of a more recent “retrojet” scheme, reminds me of how the planes looked during my very early childhood visits to Hawai’i. (Much of my childhood saw this, less fun design.)

Aloha (then called TPA – Trans-Pacific Airlines) started flying on July 26, 1946 with a war surplus C-47 (DC-3). At that time, it was hard for locals of Asian descent to succeed due to discrimination. Despite the odds being stacked against him, founder Ruddy Tongg was able to create a successful business that earned the nickname, The People’s Airline. Today will mark the end of nearly 62 years of passenger operation.

In a 1949 Time Magazine article, Mr Tongg was said to be “convinced there is room for two airlines in the air-minded Territory.” He was clearly correct. Sadly, there just wasn’t room for three.

When Mesa Airlines brought go! to the market, not many people I knew thought that three airlines could survive. Since go!’s inception, Mesa has lost a great deal of money with low load factors and even lower fares. Of course, since Mesa had deeper pockets than either Hawaiian or Aloha at the time, it could put its planes in there for the long haul and just wait for one of the local carriers to disappear. Since that time, Mesa’s financial strength has been eroded tremendously, but the airline was still able to outlast Aloha.

So, now one of Hawaii’s great airlines is gone, and so are scheduled passenger operations on the 737-200 aircraft in the US. If you had a ticket on Aloha, you’re out of luck. Contact your credit card company for a refund or you’ll have to file a claim with the bankruptcy court and hope you get anything back. (Don’t count on it.) If you need to travel between the islands, let me recommend a few airlines that can help.

Hawaiian – Flying between all the major airports in Hawai’i
Island Air – Flying primarily to smaller airports in Hawai’i
Pacific Wings – Also flying to smaller airports in Hawai’i on a less frequent basis

And yes, there’s go! as well, I suppose. No matter who you fly, the fares are likely to go up soon. Those ridiculously low fares that go! put in the market aren’t sustainable and never were. In fact, I’d be surprised if the airline can even make money at previous market fare levels with the CRJ. So, you may see fares go to levels even higher than before, assuming Hawaiian is willing.

As I mentioned above, Aloha will actually live on in a couple ways. The cargo business is still going to keep running as there have been interested parties in buying it. Also, the airport services operation will continue as well. That’s music to the ears of all major US airlines that contract with them to keep their planes running right now.

But, but most people know the airline for its passenger business, and that will end today after nearly 62 years of flying. Aloha ‘Oe, Aloha Airlines.

Edited 3/31 @ 9a to make it clear that the schedule will only operate today. After today, no passenger flights will operate.

It looks like high oil prices may have claimed their first airline victim. Aloha Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week, and unlike their last stint, I’m not so sure they’re going to come out of this one.

What does that mean if you have a ticket on Aloha? Nothing right now. Everything is operating as scheduled, thanks to bankruptcy court approval but I wouldn’t expect it to stay that way for long.

It’s long been said that there isn’t room for three airlines in Hawai’i, and many accusations have been made that go! came in with the expectation that they could run Aloha out of the market. They may have succeeded, at least, that’s whom Aloha is blaming. It’s going to be awfully hard to come up with a business plan for Aloha in which someone will be willing to invest. I mean, that’s why the current owner decided to cut off funding now. With oil prices where they are and fares as low as they are within Hawai’i, it’s not looking good for the airline.

I hate to say it, but I personally would be hesitant to book a flight on Aloha for an interisland flight more than a couple weeks out right now. You’re probably better off sticking with Hawaiian. The question now is whether or not any part of the airline will survive in one form or another. Seems to me that breaking the airline up might be the best option available right now.

The long haul flying could be attractive to someone. Might Southwest decide to pick up Aloha’s 737-700s with ETOPS certification? Could be an interesting little operation for them, especially since there’s no way to count on ATA staying in the Hawaiian market right now.

Something tells me this is going to be the first of many bankruptcies this year. If you’re booked on Aloha, you should be fine for now, but you’ll want to keep any eye on any developments that may change that. Probably saddest of all here is that if Aloha does go out of business, it will mark the end of scheduled 737-200 operations in the US. It wasn’t that long ago that America West, Southwest, US Airways, United, Alaska, and Delta were all operating the type.