go! Gets an Express Carrier

Go!, Mokulele

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), Līhuʻe (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:

grandcaravan

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 L?na?i, 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.

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5 comments on “go! Gets an Express Carrier

  1. MOKULELE does not mean Airplane Airlines.
    Moku- island
    Lele- To hop or to fly.

    MOKULELE would simply mean to Hop, or Fly between the islands..
    MAKES SENSE? Nice.

  2. MOKULELE does not mean Airplane Airlines.
    Moku- island
    Lele- To hop or to fly.

    MOKULELE would simply mean to Hop, or Fly between the islands..MAKES SENSE? Nice.
    Or “Island Hopper”

  3. The reason why go! are using smaller planes for its express route is due to the fact that JHM, MKK, and LNY are smaller airports. These airports also have weight restrictions. The Dash-8 100 is the largest type of aircraft allowed to fly into JHM (which mainly fly half full). Next time do your homework, buddy.

  4. cb – I’m not sure I understand the point of your comment. I don’t say anywhere that they should be using larger aircraft for these routes at all. It’s simply funny to see a regional that uses 50 seat jets contracting out to someone else to use smaller planes. I would have thought they’d operate it on their own.

  5. Mark my words,
    The lack of integrity of this self serving promoter will result in gullible investors and ex Aloha employees losing their shirts……again. This airline will never succeed, the CEO just doesn’t understand anything about this most complex of businesses. Don’t waste your money. Hawaiian and go will never accept the tickets of Mokulele passengers when Mokulele fails and ceases operation sometime this spring. Believe me, it is doomed. No local business people with talent will invest a penny in this sham organization. The guy is a schmuckand has only one master – his ego!
    Save your money and fly with anyone but not Mokulele!!!

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