Benefitting from the shutdown of Aloha Airlines, interisland carrier go! flew nearly 30,000 more passengers in May than in the same month a year earlier.

In a news release yesterday, go! said its served a total of 87,577 passengers last month, a 51 percent increase from May 2007's 57,935.

go!, a discount airline owned by Phoenix-based Mesa Air Group, also said its planes were 70.1 percent full, which was up from the year-earlier's 63.3 percent.

The higher load factors came as go! added flights in wake of Aloha's closure.

"We have worked hard to provide expanded interisland service," said Jonathan Ornstein, Mesa Air Group's chief executive officer said in a news release.

The May results comes as the state's largest carrier, Hawaiian Airlines, earlier this month said its passenger count for May was up by more than 153,000, or about 26 percent.

Hawaiian said it flew a total of 740,865 passengers on its interisland and transPacific flights last month, which was up from 587,017 in May 2007.

Aloha, the state's second largest carrier, shut down its passenger service on March 31 due to losses stemming from soaring fuel prices and a two-year interisland fare war.

Aloha's closing, coming 11 days after it filed for bankruptcy, prompted go! to add more than 40 flights a day, increasing its daily flights to 94.