The Cranky Flier » Mokulele

Cranky on the Web (October 11-16)

CF — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:13:13 +0000

Bloggers offer paid travel services – Washington Times
Nicholas Kralev takes a look at my Cranky Concierge service as well as a frequent flier redemption service from View From the Wing blogger Gary Leff.

September 2009 Traffic Numbers – BNET
September traffic numbers are out and the results are pretty good for JetBlue and Southwest.

Episode 68 – Cranky Yet Again – Airplane Geeks Podcast
For some reason, they let me back in the door once again for another fun-filled talk about airplanes. Giddyup.

Frontier President Sean Menke Heads to Republic – BNET
Frontier’s chief is heading to Republic to oversee all their brands. Consolidation seems to be happening faster than I thought.

Mokulele and go! Join Forces to Cut Capacity in Hawai’i – BNET
Mokulele and go! are done competing. They’re going to effectively combine to once again make Hawai’i and two carrier market.

Republic Adds 10 More Embraers to its Growing Fleet – BNET
This week, Republic continued to build its arsenal of airplanes here on the mainland. They acquired 10 more Embraers 190s from US Airways.

Why Being Geeky is Cool – JetWhine
Rob has a really nice mention of my Airplane Geeks appearance and he talks about Cranky Concierge.

JetBlue’s All-You-Can-Jet Pass Considered a Success – BNET
Friend-of-Cranky and Aviation Queen Benet Wilson talks to JetBlue SVP Marty St George about the success of the All-You-Can-Jet program.

This Week on BNET (March 23-27)

CF — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:20:16 +0000

United Releases Weaker Revenue Guidance
United announced that like Continental (though not quite as severe), it is seeing large revenue drops as demand continues to decrease.

NBAA Attacks JetBlue’s Bigwig Ad Campaign
The NBAA has gone on the attack, and JetBlue’s Bigwig campaign is the target. This does not seem like a smart move.

Republic Takes Half of Mokulele’s Equity
Looks like Mokulele’s time as an independent carrier is up. Republic is cleaning house and taking over.

What I Missed at US Airways Media Day
Since I was in Dallas with Southwest, I missed the fun at US Airways Media Day. Here is what I missed, according to other bloggers.

Phoenix Aviation Symposium Tackles Foreign Ownership of US Airlines
Day one of the Phoenix Symposium saw some interesting debates, including one on foreign ownership that’s not likely to be solved any time soon.

This Week on BNET (Feb 16 – 20)

CF — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 15:50:05 +0000

Delta Starts Consolidating Regional Carriers
Delta is taking pieces of Compass, Comair, and Mesaba and mashing them together. Seems like a good idea to me.

Why is Hawaiian Installing In-Seat Video?
Hawaiian is putting in seat video on its long haul fleet, but the case for installation is different in this market than in others.

Billions of Stimulus Funds Will Go to Transportation
The stimulus is now law, and the government is starting to dole out the funds quickly. How will the world of transportation benefit?

Mesa Makes Progress in Hawai’i with Mokulele on the Brink
Big changes could be in store for Hawai’i as a couple of airlines show very mixed results.

December Premium Air Traffic Down More Than 13 Percent
It’s time for the December premium traffic update, and guess what? It’s not pretty. Traffic continues to drop, but which area is getting hit hardest?

LAX Modernization is On the Wrong Track
LAX continues to push how proud it is that they’ve designed an architecturally-significant building for the airport expansion. It’s just sad to see how wrong that strategy is.

Frontier Has a Good December
I’m a little late with this, but I wanted to talk about Frontier’s good December. While the results are good, they’re not as good as you may think.

Mokulele Hires Republic for Interisland Flying in Hawai’i

CF — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:18:18 +0000

I wrote about this on BNET last week when it was still a rumor. Now it’s been confirmed that Republic will operate Embraer 170s within Hawai’i for Mokulele. This seems like a smart move, and it will put some pressure on go!. [/caption]In fact, I’m tempted to refer to this as “go! Away Airlines.”

Here’s the plan. Republic will take up to four 70 seat Embraer 170s and operate them for little Mokulele Airlines in a traditional regional airline-style fixed fee agreement. Two of those aircraft will arrive in time for flights to begin between Honolulu and both Lihue and Kona in mid-November. I’m somewhat surprised to not see Kahului (Maui) on the list, but maybe we’ll see that when the other two aircraft join the fleet in March. Or maybe since that’s the most competitive market in the Islands, they’re going to play a game of wait and see. Either way, they’ll need to enter that route eventually if they want to be a serious player.

Unlike the all-coach airplanes that Republic will be flying for Midwest, these will actually have 6 First Class seats and 64 in coach. Republic spokesperson Warren Wilkinson confirmed that these were aircraft that had been operating for Delta Connection, but now that Delta has up-gauged to Embraer 175s, these aircraft needed a new home.

The one thing about this deal that makes it a bit more non-traditional is that Republic will actually open a line of credit for Mokulele worth $8 million. It’s unclear whether Mokulele will need to tap this line of credit, but if they do, Republic will have the right to turn it into an equity stake in the airline.

You might think the name Mokulele sounds familiar. I’ve written about them once before when they began flying as go! Express. Yes, that’s Mesa-owned go!, the very same airline with which Mokulele will now be competing. What’s the chance they continue to fly as go! Express for very long? Just about none. In fact, Mesa CEO Jonathan Ornstein was quoted as saying “he’s disappointed in Mokulele and says he does not plan to continue a partnership with a competitor.”

go! must be livid because this does not bode well for them. Economically, the 170s are better planes to fly between the Islands. So, go! is going to have a tough time competing on seat costs. Just when it thought capacity had rationalized with Aloha’s disappearance, this new operation comes along to make life more difficult again.

For Mokulele and Republic, I think this is a smart move. Mokulele enables Republic to fly planes under a local brand name, and we saw how much backlash their was against go! for being from the mainland. Besides, Republic has stayed away from being a marketing carrier in general, and they likely are not looking to build up the infrastructure required for things like marketing and revenue management. This partnership is good for both airlines. There also seems to be broad local and political support for this venture, especially since they are promising to put many ex-Aloha employees back to work.

In short, this is the right airplane for the market, and Republic had some planes it needed to get flying again. This is a very creative way to put those planes to work in a venture that I think has a decent chance for success.

Airplane Porn from Airplane Airlines

CF — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:14:00 +0000

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.

go! Gets an Express Carrier

CF — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 22:08:00 +0000

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.