STAR-BULLETIN / 2002
Aloha Airlines expected its fiscal health to improve in the coming months.
Aloha loses
$13 million
Aloha Airlines had a loss of $12.9 million in the first quarter of this year, an 82 percent increase over the loss of $7.1 million the airline had in the first quarter of 2002.
Revenues were up 9.7 percent year over year, at $87.5 million from $75.2 million in the 2002 quarter, but expenses were up 14.9 percent at $98.7 million from a year-earlier $85.9 million.
The airline expanded its Hawaii-mainland services during the year.
Two months ago, when Aloha reported a $29.8 million fourth-quarter loss and a $43 million loss for all of 2002, the company predicted that losses would continue in the first quarter of this year, but that Aloha's financial picture should improve in the second quarter and look even better for the summer.
According to spokeswoman Stephanie Ackerman, the airline is seeing that improvement.
"The interisland market continues to underperform, but the West Coast is strong and we are on track and anticipating a profitable summer," she said.
Glenn R. Zander, Aloha president and chief executive officer, said in mid-April that the effects on tourism of the war in Iraq and the SARS epidemic would continue to hurt Aloha in the early part of this year.
Yesterday, Ackerman said the SARS end of that equation was more damaging than they expected.
"We anticipated the effects of the war, but underestimated the magnitude of the loss in the Japanese market from SARS," she said.
Ackerman did not know whether an accounting change that added more than $17 million to the negative side of Aloha's accounts for 2002 was still affecting results this year. Zander was traveling yesterday and could not be reached.
From operations alone, Aloha had a loss of $11.2 million in the three months through March 31, up 4.7 percent from an operating loss of $10.7 million in the first quarter of 2002.
The airline, the main subsidiary of Aloha AirGroup Inc., does not issue public statements of its results but the figures are posted quarterly with the Department of Transportation in Washington and can be accessed through the Internet.
The results it posts do not include figures from the other Aloha AirGroup subsidiary, Island Air, which flies small aircraft to some of Hawaii's smaller airports.
Hawaiian Holdings Inc., parent of Aloha competitor Hawaiian Airlines, a month ago reported a net loss of $15.5 million in the first quarter of 2003, down from a loss of $18.6 million in the year-earlier quarter.
