TheBuzz
TheBuzz
Life returns after
the demise of the mergerWith the proposed merger between Hawaii's interisland air carriers down for the count, both are now girded for battle.
Both have announced new routes; both have recalled employees furloughed after Sept. 11 and one of them is hiring -- big time.
Some 900 people showed up at Blaisdell Center last week to apply for 40 flight attendant positions with Hawaiian Airlines, according to Keoni Wagner, vice president of corporate communications.
Thursday and Friday the field was winnowed down in so-called "panel interviews" on the fourth floor of Building 7 at Waterfront Plaza -- mere steps from Building 2 where Aloha Airlines' offices are located.
The 132 Hawaiian Airlines flight attendants furloughed after Sept. 11 have been recalled but not all have returned, Wagner said. Those vacancies need to be filled, as do other positions needed to staff new daily flights.
"We are also hiring in the reservations area," he said. "Since January we have been working to fill 71 additional positions."
The airline aims to have 175 full-time and 114 part-time reservationists "for the summer," he said.
But the positions being filled are not necessarily temporary jobs.
"There's constant attrition, so these numbers fluctuate. This is what we're targeting for summer staffing. It will likely ebb and flow depending on the season," Wagner said.
Reservationists attend a six-week training course with 12 to 15 people in a class, Wagner said.
As such the recruitment drives for these positions is done on a smaller scale.
Hawaiian started a daily Seattle to Maui flight in March and plans to begin two routes between Honolulu and two California cities, Sacramento and Ontario, on June 7.
On June 15 it will begin new service between San Francisco and Maui and resume daily service between Los Angeles and Maui.
Aloha Airlines never changed its transpacific flights following Sept. 11, said Stu Glauberman, vice president for corporate communications.
The four pilots and 31 flight attendants furloughed after that fateful day "have all been invited back," he said.
But company officials are not yet sure how many will return.
"The process is ongoing," Glauberman said.
There was apparently no office scuttlebutt regarding the other guys' employment interviews occurring in the neighboring building.
Aloha has also announced additional daily flights.
Service between Honolulu and Burbank, Calif., begins June 1, while a route connecting Honolulu and Vancouver, British Columbia, will commence June 15.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com