well when you launch a "new" carrier into a market that's never heard of you (Lihue) with 9 flights a day (also his home), you wonder how much cash you burn thru by flying only 4 to 5 people a flight. The launch is what killed the cash. Remember, go! launched with really really heavy load factors and had about a 6 month build... Moku only did a 30 days build and LF's in the toilet. The excuse we heard was "its a holiday, flights will be full"... turned out to only be a few - while the Caravans were running at 90-100% full. However, the person that did all of that is gone from Moku's payroll.

Kona and Maui have been the strongest of the jet flights, and that's because Mokulele's "operational" home is Kona and they've been flying to Maui for about 5 years, so the folks there knew him.

The Caravan ops have been running quite well, when a select few pilots aren't blowing tires, and maintenance gets the support to keep'em all flying. The loads on the Caravans are between 60 - 80% on the average. Honolulu-Molokai is going to be at 10 flights a day this summer, so they're doing something right, and Kona - Maui should be around 8 or 9.

However, it will take a lot of caravan flying to offset the losses of an EMB 170.

Regarding the Scope Clause in the go! Express operation, I think that JO has felt he can 'ignore it' - isn't that his modus operandus?