Hawaii visitor arrivals slump by 14.3%

[JerryCarr]

And so it begins. So far the remaining airlines in the Hawaii market have not exactly jumped into the gap left by the demise of Aloha and ATA. They may be waiting to see how their load factors play out before offering more flights. Hawaiian has added an Oakland flight, and Delta has announced increased frequency to Kona (they've been all over the place with their Kona service) and a new flight to Lihue, both from LAX. That's not much of a replacement factor for what was lost, about 10% I think. The ecomomic effects could be drastic if a 14% reduction in deplaning visitors continues for any length of time. The cruise ship thing might not have as much total economic impact beyond the cruise companies themselves because cruise ship passengers generally don't rent hotel rooms and rarely rent cars. They do, however, patronize tour companies and tourist shops on land excursions, and I expect their business will suffer.

One last note on airline economics. The type of planes they have to use to get to Hawaii coincide with the type they use on international service to Europe, Latin America, and to a lesser extent Asia. Those international flights are one of the few current profit centers in the airline business. They will have to be convinced that it is worth diverting an international aircraft from a profitable business route (Europe or South America) to a leisure market like Hawaii. Of course somebody could buy ATA's or Aloha's overseas fleet, but they are narrow-bodies which are not as popular or efficient as wide-bodies.

It's really complicated, and the State powers that be need to move with uncharacteristic speed to avert serious ecomomic issues.

Cheers,
Jerry