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Senator Hooser sends letter of support
By admin | March 27, 2008
SAVEALOHA received the following e-mail from Hawaii State Senator Gary Hooser on Thursday, 3/27:
Thanks for the note and I am looking forward to speaking with you
tomorrow.
We passed out of the Senate Ways and Means Committee today HB2860 which
exempts the GE Tax the jet fuel used for inter-island flights.
We are also scheduleing a new proposal HB509 which would offer “loan
guarantees” similar to what was offered to Hawaiian Airlines in 1993.
The public hearing for this measure will probably be scheduled for
Tuesday.
In addition, we are looking for ways to move forward other initiatives
such as landing fees etc Because it is very late in the legislative
session, the process of drafting Bills, scheduleing the required
hearings and so forth…is challenging. However the top two items
mentioned above are “moving”. I know timeing is critical for you folks
however we must first pass the States budget before any other Bills with
Fiscal impacts are passed and that process still has several weeks to
go.
-gh
Would be happy to speak more about all this with you at a later time.
Many, many thanks to Senator Hooser and our other senators and representatives who support us!
Topics: Aloha employees, Hawaii State legislature, Rally, Save Aloha, State Capitol |
March 27th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
What if Nobody Wants Aloha?
Think about it. Ron Burkle is a smart man with smart people on his team. If he doesn’t want to keep Aloha after investing $110 million in the company, why would anyone else want it?
Only one reason: to change it. In our current configuration, we are the weakest Hawaii airline because we have no pricing power inter-island and fuel is too expensive. These are the reasons given by management for our return to Chapter 11. These factors are less harmful to HA and go! because (1) their non-inter-island businesses are profitable and (2) they have more efficient equipment.
Looking at the situation, I see management looking for state help and a buyer, considering breaking-up the company at the buyer’s request. I see HA and go! licking their chops waiting for us to fail. I see people criticizing management, ridiculing the state bail-out, even blaming employees. What I DON’T see is someone coming up with proposals that would make us more attractive to a buyer. Not necessarily profitable, but more attractive.
We need to figure out how much of this company we can do without. If we let things continue as they are, we will never find a buyer and we will be dead.
What would happen if we parked all of the 200s and focused on trans-Pacific, cargo and contract services? What about parking half of the 200s and focusing on connecting mainland traffic (i.e. restrict availability of Hawaii origin-destination)? Maybe the company wouldn’t be profitable, but go! would have less effect and the fleet would be a smaller problem.
These may not be the best ideas, but when will Aloha management come up with some ideas to shrink the company and save it?
We have had two years to change Aloha into a profitable company. It’s time to do it or die.
March 28th, 2008 at 1:27 am
Are you sure you are an actual Aloha employee?
Your e-mail is not one on our seniority list and your IP is coming from the mainland. Prove you aren’t another Mesa troll.
How many of you are there? Nice job spamming the KHNL poll today.
March 30th, 2008 at 1:57 am
(1) RJ 200’s are most definitely NOT more efficient than even 737-200s.
(2) Aloha needs to grow to survive. I for one cannot understand Yucaipa/ David Banmiller’s deer-in-the-headlights business strategy. Anybody with half a mac nut for a brain can figure out that we need bigger planes and more transpac/ international routes to make money. HAL is doing well because interisland is only 20% of their business and they have just won a $80 million judgment from Mesa (they haven’t received the cash yet, tho) which allows them to justify continuing the interisland ops to their shareholders. The predatory pricing by go! Airlines does hit their bottom line, but it won’t put them out of business. A potential buyer can hopefully see the impending demise of ATA and the goldmine that will be routes to the West from Hawaii that were apparently not visible to Banman and Burkle, probably because they were hyp-mo-tized by Ornstein’s high beams.
March 31st, 2008 at 12:07 am
Vinny,
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Not sure why admin admitted my post if he thinks I am HA, but I AM NOT. My e-mail address is not in the database because I’m not a pilot. But I am an employee.
I don’t know about efficiency of RJ200s, but I assumed they would be more efficient than older 737-200s.
I think we agree Aloha needs to change to survive. The UA codeshare was a great deal, but we need more changes.
I hope Lingle is successful keeping us going for a while.
Remember, the last time HA tried to shut down, they were revived after three days.
Let’s hope we can hang in for a new investor.
Take care folks.