Jan 17, 2013, 7:25am HST
Data shows Island Air passenger count has declined in recent years

Passenger traffic on Island Air has been falling over the past several years, and traffic on the Hawaii interisland airline for the first nine months of 2012 was 21 percent less than the previous year.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports Island Air, which said last week that it has an agreement to be sold to an unnamed buyer, carried 241,019 passengers between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, according to the most recent numbers available from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which was 21 percent fewer passengers than the 304,641 flown during the same period in 2011. The newspaper reports passenger traffic has declined in five of the past six years, according to DOT data.

Island Air said last week that its sale to an unnamed buyer could close within the next eight weeks, and has notified state labor officials that there may be layoffs when the sale is completed.