Aloha Airlines 1946-2008
It is with both sadness and anger that I write this post.
As many of you may already know, Aloha Airlines announced yesterday, March 30, 2008 that today would be their last day of passenger operations. They announced their bankruptcy just 10 days ago, the second time in the last 4 years- The first being on December 30, 2004.
Aloha has 3,482 employees according to Wikipedia. A few of those employees I have had the pleasure of knowing over the years - One of them real well. My original simulator partner at my present airline went off to Aloha some years ago. For the purposes of discussion, we’ll just call him Matt. Since Matt was from Hawaii, it was a good fit. Usually, but not always, simulator (sim) partners develop a special symbiotic, almost brotherly relationship- Kind of like Maverick and Goose in the 1986 movie ‘Top Gun.’ You could say that Matt and I hit it off pretty good.
I remember when Matt upgraded to Captain over there and how I had a well meaning jealous zeal over the whole thing- He was flying from the Islands in a 737-800 to the mainland once a week and things were good. But as all of us in the airline industry know, things rarely stay “good” forever, hence the analogy “fire and ice” being used to describe this career choice of ours and it’s near constant state of change.
Well things did change. 9/11 brought financial hardships and Aloha declared bankruptcy in December of 2004. But, they emerged in February of 2006 as a leaner, meaner operation.
Along came Mesa
I could do an entire post just on Mesa Airlines itself but for sake of time (and better ways to allocate server bandwidth) I won’t. Just let the picture of the billboard below speak for itself. But let me just say that I really can’t think of one good thing to say about Mesa, except that there’s been an old ditty for a long time regarding their pilots - “Good folks trying to make the best of a bad situation…”
Using five Bombardier CRJ-200 regional jet aircraft, Mesa formed a sub-division known as Go! airlines and on June 9, 2006 started flying inter island in direct competition with Aloha. Two separate lawsuits were filed, one by Hawaiian Airlines and the other by Aloha. Each accused Mesa of using confidential details it got about each respective carrier’s operations (through it’s meddling in their bankruptcy proceedings) to compete unfairly.
Well the short story is that Mesa lost the lawsuit against Hawaiian and was ordered to pay $80 million dollars in damages. In an interesting side note with circus atmosphere like overtones, about a week after the first suit was filed, Mesa’s chief financial officer George Murnane III sent an email to an acquaintance asking for information on how to delete computer files so that they couldn’t be discovered. Mesa placed him on paid leave, saying that he was browsing porn and needed a way to cover it up. Perhaps that should give some good insight into what we’re dealing with here in the way of character - And I’m not talking about the porn.
Anyhow, Mesa continued it’s Go! operation with ticket prices that many in the industry considered unsustainable and a direct attempt to drive it’s competitors out of business. (Of note is the part in Aloha’s press release where it specifically states “unfair competition has succeeded in driving us out of business” which also seems to be referring to the reasons behind the $80 million dollar judgment.)
Meanwhile things started heating up- The website www.dontflygo.com launched and Mesa even went after Aloha Pilot Mike Uslan individually in Arizona Federal Court for his participation in Hawaii’s airline Employees Repelling Ornstein, or H.E.R.O. This was later dismissed by the Arizona Judge for several amusing reasons, all of which can be found here.
(By the way, you can donate to help Mike pay off his legal bills incurred in fighting off Mesa here).
What’s Next
I have not spoken to my friend Matt. I intend to call him in a week or two after he’s had a chance to collect his thoughts and consider his options. I sympathize with his plight and that of several thousand Aloha employees.
At the same time, my overall disrespect level for another carrier’s management just went through the roof.
Capt’n Chris
Filed under: Fast News! | 
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Capt’n Chris
