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...