Aloha to cut Aloha Airlines will reduce its interisland service by about 15 percent next month as part of a capacity-adjusting arrangement with competitor Hawaiian Airlines.
service by 15%
By Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.com
Hawaiian said, however, that it won't cut its schedules until January because it already has made cuts and demand looks high through the holidays.
Aloha said that on average it will cut its 23 daily flights on the Kahului-Honolulu route to 16 and trim five flights off the 18 daily between Lihue and Honolulu, but add one Honolulu-Hilo flight, posting nine flights a day on that route.
Stephanie Ackerman, Aloha senior vice president, said those are averages through the month and that most of the effect will be between Dec. 2 and Dec. 19, after which holiday traffic rises and flights will be almost back to normal.
Hawaiian said that when its new schedule comes out for January it will have fewer flights, but a spokesman, Keoni Wagner, said he did not yet have details.
"I am sure that the schedule will change commensurate with demand. The whole idea is to match capacity with demand. We've done that in December and we'll do it in January," Wagner said.
The real advantage of being able to discuss capacity with its competitor, permitted by airline emergency laws that followed 9/11, will show in the low-demand months to come, he said. Aloha and Hawaiian received federal approval at the end of September to talk to each other about capacity, the kind of discussion that normally would be prohibited by monopoly laws.
