Since November 2010, Hawaiian Airlines has created nine new international routes, and will start a new nonstop service to Beijing, China on April 16, 2014. According to Mark Dunkerley, the CEO of Hawaiian Airlines, it costs approximately $100 million to launch a new route, but he is also not afraid to cancel a service if it is not performing as well as expected. Within the past year, Dunkerley has canceled three routes to Taipei, Taiwan, to Fukuoka, Japan and to Manila, Philippines.
Mike Boyd, an aviation consultant, stated that Dunkerley and Hawaiian Airlines are doing the right thing for canceling routes that aren't meeting expectations, despite the high start up costs. Boyd commented, "This is positive stuff. If it doesn't work, leave. There's not a hard source of data that will tell you if there's enough disposable dollars in Taiwan to support nonstop service to Hawaii. On the surface there is. But they found out they can use their resources elsewhere for a better return. That's just solid planning." Bob Mann, another aviation consultant agrees and added, "Hawaiian had a lot of new capacity (aircraft) to deploy (and) judged those the highest and best opportunities. Not all pan out as expected. Better to pull the plug sooner than tote up more losses."
Mike Dunkerley commented, "For us to say that we made a mistake expanding (to Taipei and Fukuoka) would lead us to question whether we made a mistake expanding internationally, and we clearly haven't made any mistakes with that approach. We always know that as a for-risk business that we make decisions about new markets, and not all of them are going to come up trumps. Some of them are not going to work out. Unfortunately, Taipei and Fukuoka didn't work out for us. But if you look at the success of some of our other routes in our international expansion, we couldn't be more pleased. A scheduled flight between China and Hawaii has long been an aspiration of Hawaiian and the travel industry in our state, and as the barriers to visitor travel from China to the United States slowly come down, we believe there will be significant demand for a Hawaii vacation and Hawaiian Airlines."
Mike Dunkerley commented, "For us to say that we made a mistake expanding (to Taipei and Fukuoka) would lead us to question whether we made a mistake expanding internationally, and we clearly haven't made any mistakes with that approach. We always know that as a for-risk business that we make decisions about new markets, and not all of them are going to come up trumps. Some of them are not going to work out. Unfortunately, Taipei and Fukuoka didn't work out for us. But if you look at the success of some of our other routes in our international expansion, we couldn't be more pleased. A scheduled flight between China and Hawaii has long been an aspiration of Hawaiian and the travel industry in our state, and as the barriers to visitor travel from China to the United States slowly come down, we believe there will be significant demand for a Hawaii vacation and Hawaiian Airlines."
Source: Honolulu Star Advertiser, 3-30-2014, www.staradvertiser.com
Posted by Jeff Uyemura-Reyes, Principal Broker, REALTOR®
Global Executive Realty, LLC
www.myhawaiihomesearch.com
www.myhawaiicondo.com
www.myhawaiidreamhome.com
Posted by Jeff Uyemura-Reyes, Principal Broker, REALTOR®
Global Executive Realty, LLC
www.myhawaiihomesearch.com
www.myhawaiicondo.com
www.myhawaiidreamhome.com
