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.

No, don’t worry Hawaiian and Aloha fans. There’s no need to have a heart attack. go! is not expanding beyond its interisland network with $49 fares to the mainland. Besides, could you imagine that ride in a CRJ? Yikes.

They’re actually just doing a one time trip to the mainland to bring 15,000 ti leaves to University of Hawai’i fans traveling to see their team play in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. The ti leaf is thought to ward off evil spirits in Hawaiian culture. Something tells me that some of these fans would like to ward off go! from flying within the islands any longer.

But if these fans are really smart, they’ll get together and make the world’s largest batch of ‘okolehao. That stuff is moonshine that’s made from the ti leaf, and I have to imagine it’ll get you nice and drunk. Just picture 15,000 drunk Polynesians wandering the French Quarter after a victory on Tuesday night. Heck, I’d fly a CRJ all the way from LA to see that.

Yeah, that’s a confusing title until you remember that “Airplane Airlines” is what Mokulele Airlines translates to in English. These are the guys who are planning to fly as go!Express out in Hawai’i, and they’ve finally received their first airplane for the new operation. Here’s the picture, courtesy of the Star Bulletin:

You will likely agree that it’s not exactly the most attractive looking livery around. Yikes. While they originally claimed they’d be flying as go!Express last December, it looks like they’ll now be shooting for April.

In the meantime, they’re flying on their own. They have a timetable up on their site that was effective last December showing flights from Kahului (Maui) to Kona, Hilo (Friday/Sunday), and Hana (Sunday only) as well as Kona to Hana (Sunday only). These were being flown with older aircraft, but they’re now transitioning to the new fleet.

I haven’t written about the saga in Pago Pago for quite some time. In fact, the last time I wrote about it was this post on the PriceGrabber discussion forums, so I thought it was time for an update.

There are two main players in this story. First, we have Hawaiian Airlines. They are the only airline to serve American Samoa (that’s where Pago Pago is) with the exception of some local flights to Samoa (the un-American one). In the other corner, we have this not-so-friendly looking guy on the left.

Yup, that’s Governor Tulafono and he really hates Hawaiian Air. Apparently, he thinks they charge too much and they don’t run according to schedule, so he wants them out. Even though he thinks he has the right to kick them out, the US government begs to differ. Hawaiian currently flies to Pago Pago as part of the Essential Air Services program sponsored by the US government. That means they get subsidies to fly there.

So, the governor has decided to take on the US government and try to kick out Hawaiian on his own. The government says that’s not going to happen. It’s been quiet for a few months, but now it looks like the governor is trying a different tactic - smear campaigns.

This article from a San Francisco newspaper says that the governor is blaming the fact that Hawaiian operates the Oakland Raiders charter on some flight disruptions to Pago Pago. He claims that every time they run a charter, the flights to Pago Pago have problems and it’s just another reason why Hawaiian should be kicked out.

Hawaiian says the problems are related to a delay in introducing a new aircraft into its fleet. It purchased some older Delta 767s and these apparently have taken longer to certify than they thought.

So, the governor will continue to whine and try to replace Hawaiian’s service even though he has no authority to do so. He says he’s been talking to United about a stop in Pago Pago (I’d say chances are slim to none) and that another airline in Hawai’i is interested but they are looking to see if their current equipment could fly the route. Well, Aloha knows it’s current equipment could fly the route - they’ve done it before and pulled out quickly. That means they must be talking to go!, and there is no way those CRJs are going to go 2600 miles over the ocean.

At least it’s entertaining.

The first casualty in the battle for Hawai’i (see this post) has arrived. No, it’s not an airline going away (yet), but it does involve nice looking airplanes.

According to an article in ATW, go’s $19 one way fares have made Island Air change their minds about this whole expansion thing. The one Q400 they already received will be returned and the other two will not be taken up.

It sounds to me like they’re just using go’s fares as an excuse. They had originally acquired these larger aircraft to compete head to head with Aloha and Hawaiian on routes like Kahului (Maui) to Honolulu. They had fewer flights than the big guys and they were flying props. Even though I love flying on props in the islands, most people gravitate toward jets.

Either way, it’s the end of their grand experiment. My guess is that they will shrink back to their roots, connecting smaller island airports like Kapalua (Maui) to the bigger cities.

The Hawaiian airline market is an interesting place. You put three airlines in the islands and everybody’s happy, but you add a fourth and it all goes crazy.

That’s right, it’s time to break out the steel cage for another round of the Hawaiian brawl.

When go! started flying, it angered a lot of the incumbent airlines because it slashed fares to an unsustainable level and publicly said that it didn’t care if it didn’t make a profit.

If that’s not good enough, Hawaiian Air sued them saying that when they were in bankruptcy, go! used the opportunity to see private documents and then turned around and used them against the airline to start up a competing one. Oh, and it gets worse. Now they say they’ve got an email between the head of go! and a consultant saying that the business plan only works if they can push Aloha out of business.

Definitely not the best way to make friends here.

So, a bunch of airline employees from the other three big airlines in Hawai’i put together a coalition called H.E.R.O - Hawaii’s airline Employees Repelling Ornstein. You guessed it - Ornstein runs go! and it’s parent Mesa Air Group.

Now, Jonathan Ornstein has never shied away from a fight. So how does he respond? Well, with a HERO sale, of course. The airline is offering a ridiculous $19 one way HERO fare between the islands.

This is great. Since that last BWIA brawl fizzled out, I’m glad we have something else to watch now.

One of my favorite abusers of capitalization rules, go!, has now done something pretty funny. They’ve gone and created go!Express - possibly the biggest offender of capitalization rules to date.

It seems funny that the Hawaiian airline would contract with an express carrier. After all, most express carriers these days operate the same 50 seaters that go is using to fly between Honolulu and Kahului (Maui), Lihue (Kauai), and Kona (Big Island). So for go to find an express carrier, they must be going small.

Sure enough, they are. The airline they are contracting with is called Mokulele Airlines. In case you were wondering, that translates to “Airplane Airlines” in English. Nice.

To date, Mokulele only flies three nine seat Piper Chieftains around the islands on charters, but now they’re getting into the big time.

According to the press release, customers of go!Express will “fly in first class comfort in 34″ pitch leather reclining seats, enjoy state-of-the-art inflight entertainment for the very first time on interisland services.” That sounds great, huh? Well, here’s your chariot:

Ah, the Cessna Grand Caravan in all its glory. I think people who read the description will be surprised when they find a plane with 10 seats on it.

Something that makes me want to fly these guys more than anything is their inflight entertainment. I want to know what it will be.

See, these guys will only fly between Honolulu and Lanai, Molokai, and West Maui. The longest of those flights (West Maui) is less than 100 miles away. With a half hour flying time, I’m thinking the entertainment will be the pilot pulling out a ukulele for a few minutes. Seriously though, what could the entertainment possibly be?

This does make sense for go! to do. I’m guessing they aren’t taking any risk here. Last month they flew with around a 65% load, so they need more passengers onboard (and they need them to pay more, but that’s a different story). This at least can help them fill up their planes with connecting passengers. Same goes for Mokulele since this is a new venture for them.

I guess I’ll have to go check it out for myself sometime. The flights start in December.