Hawaiian workers confident of survival
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
The security check-in line at Hawaiian Airlines yesterday spilled out of the terminal building and wound its way down the sidewalk. Inside, busy ticket agents tried to keep the line of incessant passengers flowing.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
Ticket agent Merlene Picanco arrived at work yesterday morning and learned at a staff meeting that the company she's been with for a decade had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Then she and her fellow employees got too busy to even think about what that might mean for them.
Mili Fuamatu waits at Honolulu International Airport to check in for her Hawaiian Air flight to American Samoa. Hawaiian serves niche markets in the Pacific and on the Mainland, and people who use that service said they hope bankruptcy doesn't eliminate those routes.
"We haven't even had time to discuss anything yet," Picanco, 34, said. "We've been smashed. But Hawaiian is strong enough to survive."
Passengers wondered yesterday about potential problems that affect them: American Samoa passengers worried about losing the only carrier to and from Hawai'i. Mainland customers feared that Hawaiian's bankruptcy filing might mean the loss of direct flights to their cities. Local passengers would rather keep two major, Island-based airlines.
And everybody hoped that ticket prices won't go up.
Other travelers looked around the crowded check-in area and wondered how Hawaiian could be in financial trouble when it had so many customers yesterday.
"With all of these passengers, how come?" asked Jack Gruen, a refrigerator service representative boarding a Hawaiian flight back home to Sacramento, Calif.
Hawaiian's announcement yesterday, Gruen said, was "kind of a drag" because the airline is "the only one that goes direct from Sacramento to here."
Mili Fuamatu of Kalihi and Mason Jennings from American Samoa were traveling separately but on the same flight to American Samoa. Fuamatu hoped Hawaiian's bankruptcy filing won't leave her stranded in American Samoa. Jennings just wanted Hawaiian to continue to fly to and from Hawai'i.
"There used to be three flights, then they cut it to two," said Jennings, who was in Hawai'i for a conference. "First they had big planes, then they cut back to smaller ones."
Joshua Van Orden, a manager for a car rental company, was getting on a plane to Maui with his wife, Rebekah, for their first anniversary.
"It's not like plane tickets aren't expensive enough," he said. "I just hope they don't jack up prices more."
Other passengers such as Rod DuPont of Salt Lake, a driver for TheBus, worried about Hawaiian's employees.
"I hope they can reorganize and keep in business and not lay off anybody," DuPont said. "I feel for the ones who might get laid off and won't have jobs."
Bill Maguire's aunt and uncle work for Hawaiian; she's a flight attendant and he's a pilot.
"I'm worried about my auntie and uncle," said Maguire, who works in construction in Kona on the Big Island.
He also had other, larger questions.
"I wonder why it took so long," he said. "Hawaiian's been in trouble for years."
