Mokulele Airlines has announced that they will be increasing their service between Kapalua airport in West Maui and Honolulu to seven round-trip flights per day. CEO of the airlines, Ron Hansen, stated that Mokulele was planning on increasing the frequency of their service, even before Island Air announced on March 22nd that they their last flight between Honolulu and Kapalua would be on May 31, 2013. Hansen stated, “We felt by increasing the frequency (to Kapalua) we’d capture more business. It was planned a couple months ago. It’s fortunate that we planned to do this when we did. The fact that they (Island Air) are pulling out is too bad after all these years Local passengers love the (Kapalua) flight, and the service and load factors (percentage of capacity ) were high enough to warrant having additional flights. We’re running a 75 to 80 percent load factor.”
However, Hawaiian Airlines has announced that they will be adding a turboprop operation by end of summer under the name ‘Ohana, which would initially offer service to Lanai and Molokai and eventually Kapalua. Ron Hansen of Mokulele expressed his concern that if Hawaiian enters that route, it would be challenging to compete with such a relatively large company. Hansen stated, “We’re like an ant compared to them (Hawaiian Airlines).”
Source: Honolulu Star Advertiser, 4-2-2013, www.staradvertiser.com
Posted by Jeff Uyemura-Reyes, Broker-in-Charge, Realtor®
Global Executive Realty, LLC
www.myhawaiihomesearch.com
www.myhawaiicondo.com
www.myhawaiidreamhome.com
Posted by Jeff Uyemura-Reyes, Broker-in-Charge, Realtor®
Global Executive Realty, LLC
www.myhawaiihomesearch.com
www.myhawaiicondo.com
www.myhawaiidreamhome.com
