Aloha cargo flights disrupted — is Hawaii’s economy next?

As I men­tioned on 2 April 2008, Aloha Air­lines is still fly­ing cargo flights in the state of Hawaii. It hasn’t been easy. Aloha flies 85% of the state’s air cargo, includ­ing postal mail, bread and other time-sensitive items. If Aloha stops fly­ing, Hawaii’s econ­omy will feel the effects within two days.

A report posted this evening on the newspaper’s web site says that GMAC has agreed to pro­vide US$3 mil­lion in bridge financ­ing while the Air Line Pilots Asso­ci­a­tion and Aloha man­age­ment are still negotiating.

UPDATE: here’s the full arti­cle from the Star-Bulletin’s 9 April 2008 print edition.

The main issue is which pilots will be retained when the cargo busi­ness is sold at auc­tion on 24 April. Aloha man­age­ment wants junior pilots, while ALPA favors the cur­rent col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment and senior pilots.

Can­cel­la­tions and allegations

Mean­while, Aloha can­celed 7 of its 16 cargo flights today after pilots staged a sick-out. Mail and other time-sensitive cargo was shipped, but the sit­u­a­tion will only get worse if the sick-outs continue.

An ear­lier report in the Tues­day print edi­tion has more details. In the arti­cle, ALPA rep­re­sen­ta­tives claim that Aloha is block­ing pilots from fly­ing to Oahu for job fairs by con­fis­cat­ing their ID cards and turn­ing off some infor­ma­tion systems.

Sen­a­tor Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) will hold a hear­ing of the US Sen­ate Com­merce, Sci­ence and Trans­porta­tion Com­mit­tee on Thurs­day, accord­ing to this Star-Bulletin report. Inouye chairs the com­mit­tee, and he will exam­ine the cur­rent state of the air­line indus­try in Hawaii.

Aloha Air­lines pres­i­dent David Ban­miller and the state’s three other Con­gres­sional rep­re­sen­ta­tives have been invited to tes­tify. Ban­miller has become more vocal in recent days, as he pro­vides more infor­ma­tion about how state offi­cials refused to assist Aloha Air­lines dur­ing the last two years. This Pacific Busi­ness Story has more details.

No backup plan?

Mean­while, USPS spokesman Duke Gon­za­les stated that there is no con­tin­gency plan for inter­is­land mail ser­vice if Aloha stops fly­ing. Aloha flies in all of the mail for the islands of Hawaii and Maui.

Hawaii res­i­dents have enough prob­lems already, as Kilauea pro­duc­ing an increas­ing amount of vog. The Hon­olulu Adver­tiser reported this after­noon that Vol­cano National Park has been closed as air qual­ity deteriorates.

Yes­ter­day, the Hawaii Super­ferry started sail­ing between Hon­olulu and Kahu­lui, Maui after a two-month repair cycle. See this Star-Bulletin story for more details. The Super­ferry can han­dle large deliv­ery trucks and their cargo, but the com­pany has been unable to main­tain a reli­able daily sched­ule since the ser­vice was launched in August 2007. The depar­ture of ATA and Aloha Air­lines gives the Super­ferry a fight­ing chance to hit breakeven, which is pos­si­ble with about 400 pas­sen­gers and 110 cars per voyage.

UPDATE: The Star-Bulletin ran a long arti­cle on the Super­ferry in the 9 April 2008 print edi­tion, with a time­line and plenty of details.

Tagged as: airline, Aloha, bankruptcy, cargo, economy, Hawaii, Honolulu, mail, management, Maui, reliability, superferry, union, USPS, volcano