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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Friday, April 5, 2002

Aloha to serve Canada, Burbank

By Frank Cho
Advertiser Staff Writer

Aloha Airlines said yesterday it is boosting its Mainland routes in the first planned expansion since the airline emerged from its failed merger with rival Hawaiian Airlines.

Aloha said it will launch daily service from Honolulu to Burbank, Calif., on June 1, and Vancouver, British Columbia, on June 15. Times and fares have not been determined yet, but Aloha said it will use its two newest Boeing 737 aircraft for the routes. The aircraft have 12 first-class and 112 coach seats.

"Vancouver represents an underserved market and an opportunity to grow tourism to Hawai'i," Glenn Zander, Aloha's president and chief executive officer, said yesterday. "Burbank ... is close to such things as Hollywood and the film industry."

Before the new flights begin in June, Zander said the airline plans to recall the remaining 31 flight attendants, six pilots and ground crews still furloughed from the airlines' cutbacks in October.

Aloha's proposed merger ended bitterly last month when Hawaiian put forward new conditions for the merger and then did not agree to a deadline extension for the merger when Aloha rejected those conditions.

Zander said Aloha does not plan to increase interisland routes as part of its expansion.

Aloha has about 131 daily interisland flights down from about 170 a year ago.

"What you probably will never see again is the level of service that once existed (interisland)," Zander said.

Zander said a 140 flights a day would be a big number for Aloha, but it's unlikely the airline will see that kind of growth again because the market has changed so dramatically with the introduction of direct flights to the Neighbor Islands from Asia and the Mainland.

Zander said the airline is instead looking at adding more Mainland destinations, but declined to reveal which cities the airline was considering serving.