What engine issues did the NG have with Aloha? The CFM is what is on basically every NG, 700, 800, 900 non MAX uses so whatever engine issue they faced, we will face.

The cargo issue is real deal. What would be a good airplane practically sounds like a terrible airplane for the specific mission. The 737 has gotta be the one it sounds like.

and a lot of CEOs virgins airbuses has the CFM 56 Airbus version as well

Maybe delta wants to sell some low cycle 717s…. And no beards

I thought all the VX CEO's had CFM56? NEO's obviously had LEAP.

CFM56 has been *the* mainstay engine of the industry for decades, backbone of the 737 and 320 fleets, and a few others. Doesn't seem to have any particular issue with short cycles, it's been used in a wide variety of applications.

Only got superseded because of efficiency needs, only so much more they could do with the core design.

I meant all of
CFM 56 is known industry wide as pretty bulletproof engine. GE and Safran best engine by a country mile

All the VX non NEOs were CFM, no Pratts

Take what SWA does, correct for what they did wrong… mostly pilots and maintenance in the islands. Sprinkle a couple 737’s out here to cover West Coast cancellation disruptions. I doubt AS positions 18 737’s here full time = base shrinkage.

I can see HNL based 737 inter island and having to do West Coast routes as well. I don’t see AS letting a pilot do 4 20 minute legs a day interisland and calling it a day.

Unlike at HA, Interisland won’t be 25% of AS’s revenue. ( or whatever it ended up being). The decisions on how to optimize seats and frequency are not nearly as critical to AS with its much larger pool of revenue to pull from.

With tourism still compared to 2019 because science, with the downturn of Maui visitors, with the YEN in Japan and the dollar in Canada, short term I don’t see what they would need to increase seats for?

I think they have some flexibility to accommodate those who want to be based on the islands... they can put local pilots on enough ETOPS to get the block hours to justify the desired base size. Maybe even also fly other mainland routes after crossing the pond.

I think they'd be willing to make some effort to keep folks happy-ish. It's way too early to massively downsize HNL and ship everyone to SEA.

But yeah, might be hard to never leave the islands all month if that's your jam.

Short answer yes, is there planes that could hold more? Sure but nothing can come close to doing quick turns day in day out like a 717 and hold the cargo it can.

Can do around 6k worth of cargo with full pax and typical fuel load.
You will see close to that when carrying heavy produce or a lot of military/construction peeps.

No reason a 737 can't...

I don’t believe AQ ever flew NGs interisland regularly. NGs were operated on ETOPS flights starting in 2000. I checked so online anlurces and no mention of NG interisland flying.

Having said that, you could set up the -200 steam gauges for the next leg while taxiing in to the gate and those JT8Ds started up in about 10 seconds. I imagine the DC9 was the same way on the HAL side.

Did those engines not have the 3 minute start up and cool down limitation that most other engines have?

This isn't 1982 where 20 minute turns are done. Who cares if you can prep a plane during the taxi in for the next leg or if an engine takes 2 or 3 minutes to start. It takes 30 minutes to board a plane today and safety demos take longer than the engine starts. I find it hard to believe that a 737NG can't replace the 717.

I don't disagree. I am simply asking the question.

Same seat capacity, less frequency… 717 quick turns won’t be as necessary to maintain a daily schedule.

How much money does inter-island make? With the amount of frequency and lots of open seats, I can’t imagine it does that well.

I have flown both planes. There is no difference in turn times between a 717 and a 737. I am curious what the utilization factor is for the 717s. I am pretty sure Delta 737s out of ATL can match it. Plenty of short hops there too.

717s turn in about 25-35 minutes. 737s I flew interisland did the same turn times, but it was all cargo. Interisland could trim a few flights, but frequency is very important for the islands. It’s like our bus system over water.

I think eventually the 717s and 321s will be replaced by 737s. 717s will be the first to be replaced. Probably gonna be the same category for bidding with a mix of interisland only pairings and west coast only pairings. Throw in some pairings that have tag legs to HNL once you arrive at an outerisland. We’ve already started having a few of those on the schedule lately. Relatively large amount of 737s based in HNL all painted in Hawaiian livery to make us feel better.

man I hate this merger.

I didn’t think it possible, but that sentiment is growing by the second.

I don’t believe it. Are you telling me, HAL inter island is based on 35 minute turn?! Let’s say the state needs flights from 7am to 7pm. Assuming an average stage length of 120 miles, that means block time are about 35 minutes. That means a 717 doing 35 minute turns could do 10.2 flights per day. Is that the current rate HAL is/was operating flights? In my experience, a 717 turns just as fast as a 737.i

That's not going to matter to management, if it's not making money, it will get cut. Dont be fooled by all the mahalos and alohas in the emails from corporate, they dont have a sense of duty driving them, it's all business.

The turn times in HNL are often longer due to sequencing of lines, but outstation turns are normally between 30 and 35 minutes. Block is up a bit due to not being able to do the channel approach anymore (thanks Southwest), but I think OGG and LIH are about 40 minutes of block now, with Kona being 50 and Hilo being 1 hour. Personal air time record back from LIH one night was 17 minutes wheels up to wheels down.

Looking at the schedule for tomorrow, the first departures out of HNL are at 5:30 AM with the first departures out of the outstations (from overnighting crews) are at 6am. The last departure out of HNL is at 9:40pm with the last outstation departures leaving at about 9pm. Every aircraft is running between 8 and 10 segments during the day.

This is a downsized schedule from pre covid. The last departures from the outstations used to be around 10pm although back then we didn't have any overnights, so the last HNL departures were earlier. Planes were running quicker turns in HNL then too, so each tail was doing 12+ segments a day. I think what's mostly changed is the large number of mainland flights that go directly to a neighbor island. When everything went into HNL, you needed a lot more flights mid day to move everybody to their final destinations. Now, you need more flights early and late to get the commuters around, but not as many to move arriving and departing tourists.

We know they aren't being serious until we get at least to Mālamas in an email.

No, a lot of the parings are actually built with 30 minute turn times in them. Contractually they can be built as short as 22 minute turn times.

Yes, the planes are doing 10 plus flights per day. The pilots are sometimes doing 8 flights a day.

There are 18 flights tomorrow between HNL-OGG, which is on the low end of normal.

Pre- FAR 117, eight-landing days were pretty standard fare. Almost all based on 25 minute turns back in the day. The main thing that made that possible was the previous iteration of below-the-wing ops, which separated a dedicated ramp / baggage crew from a Line Service crew doing nothing but pushbacks all day long. Like clockwork. That and we got the load closeout and takeoff numbers during taxi, no waiting at the gate.

The channel approaches and the old “12 mile rule” on 250 below 10000 (it was in our FOM in the distant past) are a distant second to old-school Interisland ground ops as far as making 20 minute turns work on a regular basis. That is a distant and bygone world!

When Line Service was cut in the name of being “industry standard to save money”, there were many who saw that as a harbinger of a future sale. They were right!

7am to 7pm made me chuckle. Pre Covid HA was running them from 5am to 11pm. With the overnight schedules it’s 6am to 10pm. More direct flights to the outerislands from the west coast as well as Japans tourism taking a nosedive has caused a reduction of interisland pax.

Ehh.

Listen, if there is ONE airline on the planet that gets essential service, for a unique place, it is Alaska Airlines. I honestly believe that if they can keep it as is now, they would.

That being said, financially, HAL was struggling in many ways, and if the inter-island stuff is a place they can clean up, they will, and they should.

This is merger 3 for me. Hating it never helped get through it. It just lets management live rent free in your mind. Understanding that we have no control over the merger, but some control over the JCBA, is probably better time spent, and better for our overall peace of mind. Let’s make this an awesome JCBA.

It might actually make money. Not much if any competition, and no alternatives (other than fly your own cessna). So fares can be higher than you might think.

However... while in industry history, it wasn't uncommon for feeder routes to operated at a loss to bring customers to the hub, that era is largely over.

If inter-island was being operated more as a loyalty thing, without much profit, that might be at risk. Most especially if AS finds itself losing money to carry pax to airports where they can jump on SW to the mainland...

The channel approaches and the old “12 mile rule” on 250 below 10000 (it was in our FOM in the distant past) are a distant second to old-school Interisland ground ops as far as making 20 minute turns work on a regular basis. That is a distant and bygone world!

When Line Service was cut in the name of being “industry standard to save money”, there were many who saw that as a harbinger of a future sale. They were right![/QUOTE]


I miss the bygone world that you and I got to enjoy. A time when our respective companies let pilots be pilots. We all had good work ethic, a gitter done attitude and going to work each day was a lot of fun. We used to know how to actually fly in a 200. PSG to WRG comes to mind. Something less than 15 minutes on the blocks. Southbound down Dry Straight, around 1,500 feet, 300ish plus knots, VFR while watching some of God's best work go by the front window. Good times were had by all and I'm grateful that I got to experience it before the world and the industry changed.

The E175s have a similar problem. They bump bags all the time and the overhead bin room gets pretty tight.

Amen brother.

If I’m not mistaken this only went away in SE AK because of the actions of a few individuals who kept setting the GPWS off, right before retirement. Per the usual we only did this to ourselves…

We had a few of our own jacka$$es that did similar things…. Apparently when the GPWS sings “CAUTION TERRAIN” while the TCAS simultaneously screams “DESCEND, DESCEND NOW” because the scenic cliff and its associated tour helicopter are competing for your windshield view, it may not end well.

Rumor has it Freighter cancelations letter might get extended by 6 months.

Im kind of afraid to ask but…

What is the freighter cancellations letter?

Probably something made up. There an amazon contract rumor out there for whatever you want to believe. Just pick your favorite or even make up your own and share to your next 10 FOs. Bonus points if your own rumor makes it back to you.

Triple bonus if it makes it back to you from an offline jumpseater.

It's not a thing... But I'm guessing what he was talking about was the earliest date that either Amazon or Alaska could cancel the contract. I think it was around the end of this summer. There was talk that it was getting pushed back until after the holidays to allow stability for Amazon in exchange for a better deal with Alaska.