Some 10,000 customers of suddenly deceased ATA Airlines scrambled around Hawai'i airports yesterday, paying hundreds of dollars to book flights on surviving airlines to get out of Hawai'i.

Many doubted they would ever see refunds on their ATA tickets, which cost from $300 to $400 to the West Coast. And most were angry that no one from ATA staffed the company's ticket counters to give them answers.

"There should have been someone here to help us out," said Julia Norlander, a 23-year-old waitress from Stockholm, Sweden, who was trying to find another flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles with her co-worker, Caroline Chakour, also 23.

Monique Guttierrez, a 22-year-old senior at Hawai'i Pacific University, was looking for a flight to Los Angeles to attend a cousin's wedding.

Guttierrez is a bridesmaid and a bridal shower is scheduled for today. Yesterday, she and her boyfriend, Val Bunao, heard the news of ATA's shutdown while driving to the airport from their home in Kahala.

"What?" Bunao said to the radio. "Maybe they knew they were going out of business."

Judy Maldonado, 66, of Henderson, Nev., and her friends, Harriet Perry, 71, of Henderson, and Patricia Bean, 66, of Portland, Ore., stood fuming in a hastily arranged line of ATA passengers at American Airlines' ticket counter.

"I can sum it all up in one word: It stinks," Maldonado said. "Stinky, stinky. They knew they were going to do this and they still flew us here."

Bean added, "There should be a law against it."

The three friends heard about ATA's shutdown from an Enterprise Rent-A-Car employee when they checked their car in after a week's vacation on O'ahu.

Now they're uncertain how much faith to put into the U.S. airline industry following the shutdowns of ATA and Aloha Airlines.

"I don't know how we can ever trust it again," Perry said after paying $380 for a flight to Los Angeles, with an uncertain connection home to Nevada. "We've had a great time in Hawai'i. Now we're going to go home stressed."

STUCK ON MAINLAND

It was a scene repeated at Mainland airports where ATA flies, most of them on the West Coast.

Two parents flying with five members of the Kahuku High School girls' wrestling team had to come up with $3,500 for new tickets home on Hawaiian Airlines when the girls found themselves stuck in Las Vegas yesterday on their way back from a tournament in Minneapolis.

The team would have made it home Wednesday as scheduled, but their ATA plane broke down, forcing them to stay overnight.

They awoke to the news that ATA had shut down.

"They're finally on their way back on Hawaiian Airlines," wrestling coach Reggie Torres said yesterday. "It'll cost them a little over $500 apiece. The dads came up with the extra money and a parent back home is trying to get donations to get them reimbursed."

The good news is that each of the girls will return with a wrestling medal, Torres said.

But three boys from Kahuku and one from Kailua are in the same situation in Reno, along with Torres and another parent.

They will have to pay another $280 per person to fly home on Delta Airlines when their wrestling tournament concludes Sunday.

"If we can't get reimbursed from ATA or the travel agent, we're going to have to pay an extra $280 each," Torres said.

Kimberlie Gamino, who ran Camp Taylor Inc. for children with serious heart problems in Mokule'ia this summer, paid more than $9,000 for now-worthless ATA tickets for 26 mentors and medical staff to fly from Oakland to Honolulu in June.

The good news is that Camp Taylor had yet to make its final installment payment for the ATA tickets. The bad news is that Gamino estimates tickets for alternative flights will cost another $17,000 — money the group doesn't have.

And the price of tickets is certain to rise as summer approaches and airline prices jump.

"I can't contact ATA, nobody can," Gamino said. "You just get their recorded message, same as everybody else. Maybe in three years we'll get a penny on the dollar for the value of the tickets."

PAY TWICE, FLY ONCE

Victor Warring of Boulder, Colo., had ATA reservations to fly to Phoenix on April 10 and went to Kahului Airport on Maui yesterday to sort out the situation.

"I'm in shock," he said. "If I have to pony up a huge sum to buy another ticket, I may have to sue them."

Jose Ortiz, 42, of Yuma, Ariz., went to Kahului Airport to find seats on other airlines for himself and three family members who were supposed to return to Phoenix today.

Their ATA flights cost $350 each for round-trip flights. Yesterday, Ortiz discovered that one-way fares on other airlines were running at least $600 each.

Ortiz, a produce buyer, said he has to get back to work and is worried he won't be able to book seats on the same flight for the entire group.

"If push comes to shove, I may have to leave by myself and leave them behind to come later," Ortiz said.

As she had done in the aftermath of the Aloha Airlines shutdown of passenger service, Terryl Vencl, head of the Maui Visitors Bureau, showed up at Kahului Airport at 6 a.m. to help stranded passengers.

Vencl and Carol Reimann of the Maui Hotel & Lodging Association provided information and assistance and tried to soothe worried visitors.

Vencl Reimann worries that the back-to-back shutdowns of Aloha and ATA may give some travelers the idea that Maui is becoming a more remote destination.

"It continues to be sad that people are losing their jobs," she said. "From a visitor industry perspective, we want to make sure people across the globe realize this isn't something that happens every day and that many, many major airlines are still flying over here."

Although worrisome, she said, recent events should not have a long-lasting impact on Maui tourism and that other airlines can be expected to absorb the additional demand for seats.

"If there is a market, people will find a way," she said.