Can prior problems that Hawaiian Airlines survived help to inform us about what the future may hold?
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47 thoughts on “Hawaiian Airlines’ Struggles and the Specter of a Third Bankruptcy”
Can prior problems that Hawaiian Airlines survived help to inform us about what the future may hold?
Our family of 30 will be going to the big island in June 2024. We’ve been waiting for Hawaiian airline(our preferred choice) tickets prices to go down. Would it be safer for us to look at another airline? What would happen to our tickets if Hawaiian airlines does go bankrupt by this summer?
Go with Hawaiian. Even if they do declare bankruptcy they will continue to operate. Now is a great time for folks to step in to help out a local business that has been around about a decade. /it would be a shame to lose them.
Sounds like a new Hawaiian CEO is long overdue.
What does Covid, the Maui fire, 8L closure, the NEO issues and the very slow recovery of the Japanese market that HA is a major player in have to do with CEO problems? I’m curious how people can blame management for that? 900 million debt and the resulting interest payments have simply made the merger a win/win deal for the two companies thanks to Alaska’s ability to absorb that and capitalize on HA’s strengths going forward.
Smart move for both airlines and forward thinking by the execs of both.
Peter I- Oops, I forgot “John W.”
I feel your pain for HA. I hope you get your “just” stock payout.
Did you forget about your miserable technology failures, or the huge 43% raises granted in January 2023, or the choice of poor quality planes, or the miserable LAX and Honolulu terminals that passengers hate? Have you tried to eat the sandwich in a bag?
If not you Peter, who is to blame?
PS, please see my reply to your tenth or eleventh post below in this thread.
Hi Rob.
We appreciate your many comments to date. Perhaps you’re just analogizing between John W. and Peter I. But we can tell you unequivocally that John W. is a real person, and he is not Peter Ingram. We’ve met them both.
Aloha.
The other “history repeating itself”, it seems, is mainland airlines running airlines in our 50th State out of business, and then not picking up the pieces. Aloha Airlines was killed by Mesa Airlines from the mainland (aka “Go! Airlines) undercutting prices until Aloha was gone, and then also “Go!” Airlines disappeared. And then there is Southwest Airlines. All of the wonderful things Southwest promised are far outweighed, in my opinion, by Southwest’s horribly negative effects on Hawaiian Airlines. So when the opponents of the proposed Alaskan-Hawaiian merger, perhaps including the current federal administration, get their way, resulting in the demise of Hawaiian Airlines, who will step in to fill that enormous void?
Hawaiian & Aloha tried to merge 3 times. The last was 2001. It would have been a good fit but it was blocked by various groups including, Hawaiian employees & the elected (senators) officials of the state of Hawaii. Aloha, being prevented from merging had to go it alone. We all know how that turned out.
That’s precisely what SWA is hoping for. To make Hawaiian disappear and control the interisland market,
Lets look where HA is really incorporated.
Definitions . Whenever used herein:
“HAWAIIAN” means Hawaiian Airlines, Inc., a Delaware corporation, with 3375 Koapaka St., Ste. G350, Honolulu, HI 96819 as its mailing address.
Hawaiian declared bankruptcy twice – long before SWA entered the picture. HA problems are of their own making.
If the financial condition of HA is so dire, wouldn’t the merger be more likely to be approved?
Not sure where your airfare to Rarotonga quote originates, but it has been stuck on $907/person since late November. It was as low as $650, but has shot back up and not come back down. As soon as it comes down, we are back on it.
If you guys have an inside line on $6xx airfare to RAR, please let me know!
Hi Justin.
It was $600 yesterday via Google Flights to Hawaiian. It is back at $900 again today. That one’s worth watching.
Aloha.
Karma is a cruel mistress, what goes around comes around. Hawaiian Airlines stakeholders, employees & elected officials put an end to the planned merger between them & Aloha. History is now repeating itself, a very sad situation. I hope the merger with Alaska goes through for the sake of all the HA employees. But, in a few years, if the Virgin America scenario is any road map the Hawaiian name will be gone, just a memory to reminisce about.
Hawaiian airlines Debt to Equity Ratio is a horrible 8.94 and climbing fast. A good ratio 1 to 1.5 anything over 5 is unacceptable to the market. As Hawaiians Debt to Equity Ratio number rises stock prices have fallen to below 14 dollars a share and falling. When merger with Alaska was announced shares just above 14 dollars a share. If the merger fails Hawaiians stocks will plunge announcing the end of the airline all together.
Here’s reality, a chapter 11 filing will not save Hawaiian this go round.
I don’t know what stock you are talking about but it wasn’t HA. They were sub $5 before the merger was announced. In June of 2021, they were over $28 (yes, during the pandemic). Hawaiian Airlines is worth saving, it’s worth investing in. If they have to file for bankruptcy again in order to keep them afloat and their employees living in-doors, so be it. I will support them like Ohana until the bitter end, theirs or mine 🙂
Sadly, the next chapter in Hawaiian Airlines financial tragedy will be mass layoffs.
The same scenario is playing out for UPS, Amazon, Google, and UAW workers-big raises result in big losses- leading to mass layoffs. Sad, the greedy beat the needy again.
Not if the merger goes through Rob, but likely if it doesn’t
Beat of Hawaii states- Hawaiian is losing, “over one million dollars a day.” Stop and think what that means, one million dollars a day!
Last I looked, Alaska is not a charity.
The coming job cuts will be brutal with or without the acquisition.
Thank goodness we still have Southwest Airlines for fair priced, dependable inter-island flights.
It won’t be that way with Hawaiian gone.
Southwest is not a charity either.
Guess what happens to the fares if they are the only game in town.
You are correct Alan….Rob T is a good example of why the SWA folks alienated so many people in Hawaii. Unlike Alaska, when SWA entered the market they displayed a very arrogant, disrespectful attitude towards Hawaiian…now his posts are trying to paint the HA/AS situation as negativity as he can when the reality is it’s simply a merger of the two best airlines that serve Hawaii and will continue to be even stronger together. All of HA’s losses were from past problems that no longer apply. Fortunately Alaska has the means to erase that debt and create a great airline with mutually beneficial synergies. Good for them and good for Hawaii.
Just to be clear per my strong response to Rob…there’s a common response floating around that is pro SWA and takes petty swipes at the merger. Of course they don’t want their competitors to be stronger. As always, SWA is aggressively self centered. I don’t think they necessarily care about the big picture and the benefits to Hawaii of having a strong AS/HA combining to create more and better travel options to Hawaii.
Hawaiian Air is *too big to fail*. It has been to big to fail in the past and now things are even more critical. It is also too precious for our state to be acquired by a mainland corporation and merged into oblivion a la Virgin America.
Gov. Green, Ed Case, Brian Schwartz… wake up ! Get involved now with a bailout proposal. Or, the situation here in the islands will become even more dire, as we will loose the remaining control we have on the visitor industry here to more West Coast corporate structures. And all the technology jobs will go to Seattle, strangling the future of our kids. Part of the proposal find an experienced CEO / partner for Peter Ingram, if he agrees to stay.
Peter I- Oops, I mean John W. I feel your passion for HA. However, your choice of adjectives-“arrogant, disrespectful, petty, and aggressively self-centered” to describe “SWA and SWA folks” seem lacking in aloha and logic.
You can’t really believe “All of HA’s losses were from past problems that no longer apply?”
Rob, In SWA’s Oakland offices they had a large ceramic shark painted in SWA colors trying to devour two small fish, one painted in HA colors, the other in Alaska’s. Not an isolated incident but best sums up the SWA approach to Hawaii. Trying to take local jobs away from the people that live here for their own growth, hence my opinion of them. Hawaiian was very profitable from the Dunkerley era till COVID. One year they had the highest operating profit margin in the industry, another their stock hit $60. Their issues all started with COVID. SWA came here like someone moving to Hawaii and trying to talk pidgin when they can’t even pronounce the names of the streets.
Funny that Hawaiian is now playing the victim. When Aloha went under their pilots’ were flying victory flags out of their aircraft windows. In addition, when SWA announced intention to add Hawaii many of Hawaiian employees including those in the C-suite predicted their failure and possibly the failure of their company. No one is innocent.