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I just got a dear john letter from ATA. They declared bankruptcy yesterday (Wed April 2nd) and ceased all operations.
http://www.ata.com
quote:
After filing for Chapter 11 on April 2, 2008 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Indianapolis, IN, ATA Airlines has discontinued all operations and cancelled all current and future flights. Following the loss of a key contract for our military charter business, it became impossible for ATA to continue operations. Unfortunately, we were not in a position to provide our customers or others with advance notice.
Be careful booking 'replacement' flights. Most of the flights I saw on Travelocity with other airlines are codeshare ATA flights, which of course, won't be flying. Travelocity was still selling ATA flights and codeshares as of 1am this morning....obviously they didn't get the memo. FWIW, one way west coast to Hilo is up to $500...my ATA ticket was $150
((
Good gracious this sucks. My heart really goes out to the employees and everyone here for Merry Monarch. Unbelievable.
* I'd rather fail at happiness than succeed at misery *
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I learned of the ATA shutdown this morning on the news. Very sad, especially for the employees of both Aloha and ATA. Since my husband has been on living and working on the Big Island for a year and a half, while I am still stuck here in California
, we frequently used ATA's direct (formerly) Oakland to Hilo flight. In fact, we had purchased a ticket for June already. I quickly rebooked with Hawaiian this morning (at more than three times the price). I then called my credit card company, who was very speedy and gracious and issued me a credit for the unused ATA ticket.
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Aloha & ATA...
If you havn't been following the news over the last two weeks, Go Airline's parent company Mesa is not to far behind those two.
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What I'd like to know is what happens to the Aloha airlines suit against Go airlines scheduled for this October? Do they continue and try to collect $80 million from Go like Hawaiian did...or is that a mute point at this stage.
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Macuu222, defunct companies sometimes have something resembling the estate of a deceased person. Often these are skeleton crews to handle the sale of assets and the distribution of the sales proceeds to creditors. (Sometimes the creditors themselves take on this job by committee under the supervision of a bankruptcy judge.) In the case of Aloha, the potential judgement of the lawsuit might be one of its biggest assets, so I am sure the creditors will want the suit to go ahead, especially since Hawaiian Air has already won on much the same grounds. Of course the appeals process on that one has already started, so this will all go on for years. Unfortunately, it won't bring back Aloha.
Cheers,
Jerry
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The suit continues. Mesa can not dodge that bullet.
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Wow! The repercussions this morning are incredible!
Thank you Hooligal for the email. Glad you got your tix rebooked!! Our friend was to arrive tomorrow from Oakland - he is now going Oakland-portland-hnl-hilo on Saturday after 3 hours on the phone. Our hanai son almost booked his tix on ATA yesterday to leave for his new job. Yesterday tix were $200 - this AM $600 on other airlines.
I feel for all the travelers, and the employees and their families. At least with sugar, the islands had some time to come to terms (in a way) and prepare a bit for the slow down and eventual cessation. And even then it was devastating.
Although how does one ever completely prepare - Especially older employees that may lose pension benefits, medical insurance, etc. It is also harder to find jobs with similar pay.
I talked to my brother at USAirways this AM. He said the pilots he met who were with ATA in Oakland, were talking about this coming seriously about two weeks ago. Yet they let travelers be stranded!
Does our government not see what these fuel prices are doing to everybody????? Oh wait our tax dollars pay for their first class tickets. (sorry Rob, I know I am going national here!)
