Alaska Airlines Hawaii Operation

Just thought I share this with everyone. The other day an article ran in the Honolulul Star-advertiser, showing how well Alaska is doing in Hawaii! They currently dedicate 15 perecent of their fleet to the hawaii operations and will have more than 100 weekly flights this winter. They also are able to maintain high load factors that range between the mid 80's to the high 90's. However Alaska has only two employee based in Hawaii running the whole operation. I think it's time they start hiring their own staff in Hawaii, just my thought!

Alaska is planning on starting Bellingham to Honolulu next year as well as other new routes later this year and next. It seems they are adding a new route to Hawaii every month!

Good luck to Alaska!

Alaska finds sweet isle air - Hawaii Business - Staradvertiser.com

Wow, Alaska has sure entered the Hawaii market with a vengeance! We started our Hawaii service only a few years ago and now have so many flights it's hard to count. Alaska now goes to one island or another nonstop from SAN/SJC/OAK/SMF/PDX/SEA/BLI/ANC. Amazing, isn't it?

Definately, I'm using you as by back-up. *wink*

We will add SAN/HNL service starting in November. We fly to HI almost more than we do in Alaska!

Who does the ground handling for AS in the Hawaiian islands?

Regards,

Chepos

Sorry for the delay in answering, I was traveling. Depends on the island. Oahu is handled by DL. I believe Kauai is handled by DL as well, though I'm not certain. Hawai'i and Maui are handled by UA.

With more and more flights to the islands, I'm hoping we will get some AS people in there. I'm sure the preference bids are ready!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chepos

Who does the ground handling for AS in the Hawaiian islands?

Regards,

Chepos

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My understanding is that the CSAs granted the company a waiver in their last contract so they could contract out Hawaii ops. Management's position back in 2007 and 2008 was that the service was very new and they weren't sure how it would perform...so why spend a lot of money relocating agents to Hawaii. Well, it's 2011 now and we've seen just how much AS has grown in the islands (BTW...SEA-HNL is up to 3x daily starting late December) and the company is very profitable.

A less credible rumor is that Horizon is looking at inter-island service with some of the Q400s. That would be very interesting...