Aloha parks it

This nice picture from Airliners.net was taken Wednesday, the day after Aloha Airlines shutdown their operations. Honolulu International Airport is now littered with their old fleet. Aircraft are parked in every little nook and cranny available at the airport as their fleet of 28 Boeing 737s await their new fate.

Photo: David Sperry

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Aloha to Aloha Airlines -- Final Flight

Aloha Airlines completed its last flight On Monday (March 31) after 61 years of operation. Officials from the airlines say they simply ran out of time to find a qualified buyer or to get more $$ to keep operating. They blamed "unfair competition" from Mesa Air Group's go! airline that started operations in Hawaii in 2006 and offerred inter-island fares as low as $19 each way. Yay capitalism.

The last flight, as I'm sure was planned, was from Kahului with Aloha's most senior pilot and most junior pilot at the controls.

The airline's worst accident occurred in 1988, when a part of the fuselage ripped away in flight. See Hollywood's best reenactment of said incident below. Love the acting.

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Champion Air the latest victim of fuel prices

Just a week after Aloha Airlines announced it would be shutting down due to high fuel prices, Champion Air is now the latest to fall under the same axe announcing their intentions of ceasing flight operations on May 31st according to a company press release. President and CEO of Champion, Lee Steele, indicated in the release that, “This is a sad day for the entire Champion family,” and a sad end to an 11 year old airline hitting what they claimed to be the "perfect storm" of economic downturn and tight credit. The airline will fulfill any commitments to customers between now and shutdown, but the 550 employees of Champion are undoubtedly already looking for other jobs. I'm not sure what they were expecting with the fuel prices when they operated a 16 aircraft fleet of all 727s. That aircraft could hardly be considered "green" when it comes to fuel consumption.

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