The toll from the quick death of Aloha Airlines' passenger service six weeks ago continues to rumble through the lives of the 1,900 former workers as they struggle with their finances and feelings.

Some 110 former Aloha workers have gotten a second chance in Hawai'i's struggling airline industry with their rival, Hawaiian Airlines. They consider themselves lucky, but many have to contend with lower pay, less seniority and feelings of guilt as survivors of one of the state's largest mass layoffs.

In the most extreme case, captain/evaluator-instructors went from making $140,000 per year at Aloha's top scale, to $30,000 as probationary first officers for Hawaiian.

But it beats switching careers after decades flying commercial jets, they said. Or worse, having to leave Hawai'i.

"It's like winning the lottery," said Joe Pu'u, a 42-year-old former Aloha captain/evaluator-instructor pilot currently training to start over with Hawaiian. "Some of the people who didn't get hired here were my mentors."

Many former Aloha workers who found jobs outside the airline industry wrestle with the loss of a career they loved.

Monica Kalahui, a former Aloha flight attendant, turned 40 just before Aloha's passenger service went under. Last week, she returned from a trip to Las Vegas and today begins a new job as an administrative assistant for a temporary employment agency.

None of it helps.

"My life's spiraling out of control and I'm losing everything I had," Kalahui said. "I feel lost. I feel empty, like I don't have control over my life anymore. Family and friends try to be supportive and say, 'Get over this Aloha thing already and move on.' But I don't know how to move on."

Even the excitement of a new job exacerbates Kalahui's depression.

"Now I'm gong back to the Monday through Friday routine of sitting in traffic in the morning, sitting in traffic in the evening," she said. "That's what my life's going to be like from now on."

Kalahui's friends hoped the Las Vegas trip would cheer her up. Instead, she came back even more depressed.

Kalahui normally would have flown for free on Aloha but had to travel on rival Hawaiian.

"The flight attendants were great and were very compassionate and very sorry for what's going on," she said. "But I just looked at them and went, 'Gosh I'll never get to do that again, interacting with the people.' I started to cry."

Back in Honolulu International Airport, Kalahui saw empty Aloha planes sitting on the tarmac and cried even more.

"They were just sitting by themselves," she said.

FILLED WITH SORROW

The tears continue to fall even for former Aloha flight attendants who are starting over in Hawaiian's training program.

Ryan Sanico, 41, wept and had to turn his face as he remembered walking through Honolulu International Airport the other day with the new purple Hawaiian Airlines polo shirt he wears for his flight attendant training.

A former Aloha Airlines customer stopped Sanico and said he mistook Sanico for an Aloha flight attendant. It was a moment that made Sanico's fellow Hawaiian trainee Valerie-Ann Chock, 29, cry, as well.

"They really loved us," she said. "We really were a family."

The highs and lows that Aloha workers continue to experience may be even more intense than other laid-off workers, said Dr. Ira Zunin, medical director for the Mana Kai 'O Malama clinic on Ward Avenue.

The universal theme of "family" that Aloha Airlines employees use to describe their former company is the primary reason they continue to grieve its loss, Zunin said.

"Aloha is a Hawaiian-grown company that was around a long, long, long time," Zunin said. "Most of us feel some sense of family with our employers but there was even more of a sense of 'ohana with Aloha. It was like the post-modern plantation culture, with a strong social fabric and multigenerations of stability. There was a real sense of mission for these Aloha folks."

Reports of marital problems, severe mood swings, depression and low energy among once happy, high-energy workers don't surprise Zunin.

Along with the high cost of living on O'ahu, a slowing economy and increasing stress of traffic and everyday life, "this can be the last straw for a vulnerable family unit," Zunin said. "Maybe the marriage wasn't great but they were getting along. Now you have additional face time and extra financial stressors."

HAWAIIAN HELPS OUT

Like other former Aloha employees now training for jobs at Hawaiian, flight attendant Trisha Awa-Lee, 40, said Hawaiian employees continue to recognize their pain and began helping immediately after the news broke that Aloha would end its passenger service after 61 years.

Hawaiian Airlines executives dispatched lunch for Aloha employees, as they struggled through the day, and Hawaiian workers offered hugs and condolences.

On their first day of classroom training last week, Hawaiian Airlines Chief Executive Officer Mark Dunkerley addressed their emotional struggle head-on.

"He acknowledged our work for Aloha and said he knew that coming to Hawaiian was a big change for us," Awa-Lee said.

For Sanico, Dunkerley's remarks "show top to bottom how genuine things are here."

Former Aloha captain/evaluator-instructor Adrian Kinimaka, 49, was one of about 250 Aloha pilots out of 330 he estimates applied for lower-paying positions at Hawaiian.

Like others who blame discount airline go! for Aloha's demise, Kinimaka said his only option was getting a job at Hawaiian to take care of his two teenagers.

"I'm thankful," Kinimaka said, "very thankful to have a good job with a real good company."

He compared the competition between Aloha and Hawaiian as "a friendly rivalry, like two competing high schools."

Asked if he had applied at go!, Kinimaka just shook his head and offered a mock shudder.

But Joe Bock, go!'s chief marketing officer, said some former Aloha employees have applied for pilot and flight attendant jobs in Hawai'i, although he did not have an exact number.

"We've received a lot of applications, but we haven't hired any yet," he said. "Quite a few are being interviewed."

Ground services for go! — ticket counter workers, gate agents, ramp agents — are handled by outside companies, Bock said.

Former Aloha Airlines captain/evaluator-instructor Mikel Gilliland had been No. 7 in seniority at Aloha.

"Now I'm 360-something at Hawaiian," Gilliland said.

But at 47, and with 6-year-old twins, Gilliland is eager for the chance to fly again — even if it means a massive pay cut, change in lifestyle, demotion and return to the first officer's seat.

"I wasn't even going to chase a flying job if it meant leaving the Islands," Gilliland said. "Thank God I have a job."