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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, September 18, 2001

The September 11th attack
Aloha Airlines cuts flights 26%

• Troubled airlines cut flights, plan layoffs

By Michele Kayal and Frank Cho
Advertiser Staff Writers

Aloha Airlines will cut its interisland flights by 26 percent starting Monday to cope with a slowdown in air travel since last Tuesday's terrorist attacks, the company said yesterday. Employee cutbacks are expected to follow later this week.

Hawaiian Airlines said it is also considering scaling back its payroll and flight schedule, and that a decision could come as early as today.

Aloha said it will trim all of its interisland routes, reducing the total number of flights from 150 a day to 113. In particular, the airline will end its jet service between Maui and the Big Island.

"We've seen our interisland traffic drop anywhere from 25 to 30 percent, depending on the market," said Aloha spokeswoman Stephanie Ackerman. "We're going to carefully monitor that on a regular basis and hope that it doesn't decline any more. We hope this is just temporary."

Aloha's sister company, Island Air, which flies 37-seat DASH-8 aircraft, will take over the Maui-Big Island routes, Ackerman said, but it was unclear yesterday how many flights will be offered from Kapalua to Hilo and Kona.

The scaled-down interisland service will mean reductions in the number of employees, the company said, but the exact number had not been determined. Notices should go out to employees later this week, Ackerman said.

For now, Aloha will maintain a full schedule on its Mainland routes, where Ackerman said traffic has not been affected.

The airline will also suspend its "Guarantee Program," which offered customers free interisland tickets if the plane was not on time. "Because so much of the security measures are out of our control, we have suspended the program," Ackerman said.

Aloha also has put plans on hold for new Mainland routes, Ackerman said, and for new interisland aircraft. The airline is keeping all of its planes, however, in case demand picks up.

Hawaiian Airlines also is considering cutting flights and employees, a spokesman said, adding that a decision about the severity of cuts could come as early as today.

"At this point, the company is trying to assess whether or not something like a furlough program is needed. There is a lot of attention being focused on this right now," said Hawaiian spokesman Keoni Wagner.

Reduced passenger demand and new security requirements are putting the squeeze on all airlines. The reduced passenger demand has already led many Mainland carriers to cut service by 20 percent or more and announce layoffs.

Continental Airlines, which announced Saturday that it was reducing its long-term flight schedule by about 20 percent, said it planned to furlough some 12,000 employees possibly including some in Hawai'i.

Ron Wright, a spokesman for Continental in Honolulu, said the carrier's Hawai'i schedule is back to 100 percent, but whether there are any layoffs will depend on if the carrier can fill those flights.