Hawaii might be having another cargo carrying airline and that is aloha airlines. The airline is a competitor to the hawaiian airlines and the most funny thing is that the reason why the flight had begun was also to provide competition to the hawaiian airlines. However, initially known as trans-Pacific Airlines, it was basically flying between Honolulu, Maui and Hilo. Except for the Maui part, the destinations were that of the hawaiian airlines.
However the Trans-Pacific was indeed a trans-pacific airline, connecting China to the US. Since the hawaiian airline ruled the market then, the trans-Pacific airline was not allowed to fly on schedule and was thus flying as a chartered plane. Time gave it the nick of aloha airlines, unlike other cases where the names of the flights were changed to suit the administration. Amongst a load of other good deeds, President Harry S.
Truman was also responsible for allowing the trans-pacific aloha airline to take off as a scheduled flight. This indeed proved to be a fructiferous step for US as well as alohaairlines which adopted the name aloha air officially following a 30% shares profit following the historical decision by the President Truman. Such was Aloha air’s progress, that it became the second airline in the US which was operating an all-turbine fleet. Within another 5 years, it also became a pure jets fleet.
Giving up its one-elevens, aloha air went on to purchase the funbirds themselves, an alias given to the Boeing jets. Aloha airline was also one of the first few airlines to have its own frequent flyer program that included various incentives for regular travelers as well as special privileges on board. However, this did not prove to be a wise decision as aloha airline was unable to compete with the continental and hence sold these ventures and processed towards more cargo and freight oriented flights. Due to imminent bankruptcy, Ching and Ing familes took over the control for almost 2 decades. This too could not help the doomed airline. The fate of the passenger fleet of aloha airline had been sealed.
However September 11, 2001and SARS had an immensely negative impact on the aloha airlines, as a result alohaairlines had to file for bankruptcy. To recover, the group had to shut down all the passenger ventures. The negative publicity had its impact too. The aloha air could never recover from the 1988 N73711 incident that had the tearing off of a section of the fuselage roof and sides , resulting in the death of an attendant, several massive injuries with most being head wounds. This had resulted in immediate retirement of old aircraft within us carrier fleet. However the incident caused high media frenzy and was repeated in The Ghost Whisperer, Miracle and Mayday, never letting the furor die. As a result aloha airlines gave up on its passenger carrier service. Initially the plan was to allow the paparazzi to get bored of the incident. However, things went out of hand after nine-eleven, which affected the economics almost universally. The second big push came in the form of SARS, which halted almost all of the Trans-Pacific flights as well as the connector ones, thus killing the main motive of the aloha airlines. This was precisely when aloha airlines had entered the second claim to bankruptcy; when the chairmen families realized that aloha air was indeed a lost game and that the passenger venture is a lost deal, what with massive competition from within the US. This has not been the first incident when a business almost disappeared off the face of earth because of nine-eleven, and is indeed not the last one either.
However, the cargo service is currently under bidding and will be working under Pacific Aloha Cargo group. The final decision is still being awaited as of April 2008.
