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Delayed air travelers
bemoan lost Christmas

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By Pat Gee
Star-Bulletin

Hawaiian Airlines became the Grinch who stole Christmas for some Hawaii-bound passengers from Seattle, whose flight was twice delayed since Sunday. Flight 1021 finally landed here yesterday at noon.

Police were called in to calm irate passengers, 44 of whom had suffered two flight cancellations since the journey began. One of the passengers was Conrad Kalauokaaea, formerly of Honolulu, who confronted the ground crew for more information when he had run out of milk and diapers for his twin nine-month-old girls by Monday.

"No one would give us a straight answer," he said of the Seattle airline officials.

"The final blow" was "they wouldn't give us our bags," said Kalauokaaea, now a resident of Redmond, Wash.

The airlines made compensation for the delay, but it "can't buy Christmas back for us guys," he said. Kalauokaaea had planned to celebrate Christmas with his two other children in Hawaii, but "I missed everything."

Keoni Wagner, Hawaiian Air's spokesman, said several passengers were "verbally abusive" and police were called because the "crew felt threatened." He said passengers were the victims of a "very rare set of circumstances. We had no access to spare aircraft, crews or other airline flights. We tried to get them seats on other airlines up and down the coast. We couldn't, so we focused on getting the aircraft ready to fly. It was a no-win situation ... at the worst possible time."

After the first flight cancellation, all but 44 passengers had been re-booked on other flights.

Sheryl Andrews of Olympia, Wash., said the worst thing was the "poor communication" from the Seattle ground crew.

"They kept telling us it would be another hour, another 15 minutes," she said, but the delays turned into two days, with an overnight stay in a hotel Christmas Eve.

"One passenger missed his dad's funeral, and another had to go to his brother's wedding at noon (Tuesday)," she said.

Elizabeth Leibly of Seattle spent Christmas Eve in a hotel room trying to reassure her 3-year-old son, Jacob, that Santa had not forgotten about him this year. She and her son were to meet her mother on Maui.

In spite of the ordeal, Leibly said the flight crew was "wonderful." She said, "I've flown Hawaiian Air hundreds of times. This must've been a freak accident."

Todd Futa of Seattle, who came to vacation in Hawaii for the first time, spent three days in the same clothes. Everyone got their baggage after two days, but the airlines lost his entirely. He was still trying to locate its whereabouts when he landed Tuesday.

"In Seattle, there were hassles, lies, no questions answered ... We couldn't get an answer to save our lives," he said.

"Mechanical problems we understand, but Hawaiian Air in Seattle refused to re-book us the first day. There were other planes available, but I was told they needed permission from Hawaiian Air to release us, and they wouldn't," Futa said.

But the (flight) crew was "top-notch, great people," he added.