Posted on: Thursday, June 26, 2003

Ex-airline trustee continues with job

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

John Monahan, who abruptly resigned Tuesday as Hawaiian Airlines' bankruptcy trustee effective immediately, showed up for work yesterday. Monahan will continue to help Hawai'i's largest airline until a new trustee comes onboard, Hawaiian officials said yesterday.

"It's not like he simply walked off the premises and turned off the lights," said Mark Dunkerley, Hawaiian's president and chief operating officer. "He's still engaged."

Monahan cited unexplained personal reasons for resigning just three weeks after he took the role as trustee, setting off uncertainty for the airline's hopes to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

But Monahan showed up yesterday at the Koapaka Street headquarters of Hawaiian Airlines. And he'll continue to keep working in the office of former CEO John Adams until a new trustee takes over, possibly as early as next week, Dunkerley said.

Monahan did not return phone calls seeking comment yesterday.

As Monahan continued to work on Hawaiian's bankruptcy issues yesterday, senior officials hoped the company's 3,000 employees weren't distracted by his resignation and stayed focused on running the airline.

Dunkerley met with some employees and said they were not concerned by Monahan's resignation.

"We keep hammering the point that the best thing we can do as employees of Hawaiian Airlines to help the restructuring process, to make it as swift and painless as possible, is to continue to do the good job that we're doing at the moment," he said. "Day-to-day operations, both commercially and operationally, continue unabated. The operation continues to run extremely smoothly."