Carrier grounded after 61 years

Hawaii’s Aloha Airlines, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy two weeks ago, stopped flying on March 31. The 61-year-old airline had been operating an extensive inter-island network, as well as service from various west coast airports to Hawaii. According to CEO David Banmiller, “We simply ran out of time to find a qualified buyer or secure continued financing for our passenger business. We had no choice but to take this action.” The shutdown will leave 1,900 employees jobless. When it field for bankruptcy, Aloha had squarely blamed its financial problems on predatory pricing by Go!, a relatively new entrant in the inter-island passenger market. A subsidiary of Mesa Air Group, Go! responded to Aloha’s departure by boosting its inter-island schedules from 54 daily flights to 94, and Hawaiian Airlines said it was increasing its schedules by 6,000 seats a day. Go! and Hawaiian Airlines both said they would accept Aloha paper or electronic tickets through April 3 on a standby basis. United said that it will rebook Aloha passengers who are traveling on a United ticket for no extra charge, and will offer discounted one-way fares through the end of April for passengers ticketed on Aloha. United also said it will honor AlohaPass frequent flier members’ award bookings on United flights, and will refund Mileage Plus members’ miles if they are holding award bookings on Aloha.