Hawaiian Airlines posted a $20.9 million profit during the fourth quarter of 2011. While this was significantly lower then the $70.6 million posted during the fourth quarter of 2010, analysists and investors seemed to take this in stride and blamed the decrease on higher fuel cost. President and CEO for Hawaiian Airlines, Mark Dunkerley, stated, “It was a pretty good quarter. The year as a whole for 2011, after you’ve made the adjustments for some of the one-off items, was roughly the same as 2010, which, when you consider that the price of fuel is some 35 percent higher, means that we’ve done a good job of controlling our costs and raising our fares to offset the effect of fuel. In the short term when you expand quickly, you tend to incur costs before you see the revenues coming in, and that would be the case with us today. But what’s important is we’re managing this business for the long term, and we believe for the health of this company, it’s important that we grow into the geography we’ve been expanding into.”
Managing director of institutional sales for Dominick & Dominick LLC, John Reardon, noted that the image of Hawaiian Airlines has been changed over the last few years. Reardon stated, “This is a growth company. Not that long ago Hawaiian was basically a Hawaiian asset story. They had the interisland business and the West Coast-to-the-islands business, and the stock rose and fell based on those particular markets. But now Hawaiian Airlines is a growth story, and you’re going to see them continue as they get the aircraft (a shift to Airbus A330-200s from Boeing 767-300ERs) to do that, and you’re going to see them continue to expand in North Asia.”
Source: Honolulu Star Advertiser, 2-1-2012, www.staradvertiser.com
Posted by Jeff Uyemura-Reyes, Broker-in-Charge, Realtor
Global Executive Realty, LLC
www.myhawaiihomesearch.com
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