Anyone know if Island air is hiring for their EAS contract for a base out of KC? If anyone has any contact info that would be great. Just heard about the EAS award for them.

 

They were to serve some cities in Nebraska, where I am from, and I read last week in the GRI (one of their EAS routes) newpaper that they canceled their EAS contract. That's all I heard, since they won't respond to my e-mail, when I inquired the exact question you just asked.

 

Trying to return to the mothership dawg? Not close enough in STL or worried about further F-? I've already gotten the notice from my company...maybe that degree we have will get me a job somewhere.

 

From what I understand the EAS contracts were cancelled by Island Air.

After the fall out of Aloha Airlines in Hawaii, they are unable to keep up with the demand for air travel in the islands. Their focus is on sustaining the flow of passengers in Hawaii and said they could not provide EAS flying in an appropriate time.

 

Yep...Island Air backed out of the EAS stuff on the mainland because they felt they couldn't get it up and running as quickly as needed.

Personally, I think it's better for WP to focus on Hawaii right now. After having worked there for four years on the ramp in HNL, I know they still have some operational issues to sort out. Right now they are flying five lines per day with five Dash 8-100s. With no spare EVER, you're only asking for trouble. I can recall countless times when this situation has bit the company in it's rear. Inter-island flying is pretty rough on planes (they do upwards of 16 legs/day), and those Dash 8s love to break down at the worst times.

 

Anyone thing Island Air will bring back the Q400 or other "regional" type aircraft to try to fill Aloha Airlines' shoes....especially if go tanks?

To me, there would be no better successor to Aloha than it's former subsidiary, Island Air.

 

That would have been good to get them more business, but that would also have sucked a little. "Sweet, I got hired by Island air....Hawaii here I come....wait, Kansas City...***!"

 

The Q400 would seem like a good idea to bring back, but I think that would only be if WP wanted to expand on routes that they don't really focus on (i.e. HNL-LIH/OGG/KOA/ITO) because the 400 is WAY too much plane for LNY and MKK, and it can't even get into JHM. Even when they expanded like crazy in 2005 and 2006, they steered away from the heavier routes that AQ, HA, and go! were running. Instead, they focused on OGG-LIH/KOA/ITO, along with some oddball routes like JHM-KOA/LIH and LIH-KOA. This was in addition to the normal WP markets of JHM, LNY, and MKK. Although they did have a few HNL-LIH, OGG, KOA, and ITO flights, they were mainly used to position the aircraft. Their role is to be more of a niche player, although with AQ gone, they may be able to pick up a decent amount of traffic on the heavier routes....if they want to. I remember there being talk of picking up some -300s late last year for the JHM/LNY/MKK runs, but that fell through when the company and the pilots couldn't come to an agreement on pay. Anyway, the 400 was originally brought in to run routes like OGG-KOA that WP was making a killing on....but that was when they really had no competition on the route except for an AQ and HA flight. Nowadays, you've got a whole slew of flights from Pac Wings and go! Express. WP has cut back frequencies to 3 daily from a peak of 6 or 7 daily.

 

Does anyone know if Island makes you sign over your seniority number if you get furloughed?