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50 Hawaii Icons: Aloha and Hawaiian Airlines

Posted on: Monday, 25 July 2005, 03:00 CDT

Commercial interisland service has been a fixture of daily life in Hawaii since statehood, spurred by the advent of jet service among the Islands in the 1960s. In its heyday, interisland flights were so frequent - some at 30-minute intervals - that residents and visitors considered them the Islands' secondary bus line. Travelers could buy coupon books and use them at will, like bus passes. Alas, those days are over, as the airlines have tightened their belts after 9/11 and attempted to get a better grip on their inventories.

Commercial flights started in the 1930s, with InterIsland Airways, which was renamed Hawaiian Airlines in 1940. The airline reduced travel time between Honolulu and Hilo from almost two days by boat to less than two hours by plane. In 1946, a local hui formed TransPacific Airlines (now Aloha Airlines), allegedly because Asians flying between the Islands during the war were viewed as security risks and excluded from Hawaiian Airline flights by military government employees. This introduced a virtual duopoly that has endured for decades, more recently resulting in a federal antitrust exemption that allows them to coordinate their schedules. Other interisland airlines had attempted to shoehorn into the market, but none of them survived.

Today, stalwarts of the airline industry nationwide are facing formidable competition, and Hawaii is no exception. With both of Hawaii's interisland airlines in bankruptcy, and anticipated startups like the Superferry and FlyHawaii airlines, the two airlines that transformed interisland travel will either find ways to adapt, or fade into the horizon.

Copyright Hawaii Business Publishing Corp. Jun 01, 2005

Source: Hawaii Business

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