Following our recent Island Air post regarding issues we personally encountered flying inter-island, we promptly heard from the company’s CEO, Paul Casey, and others. We also had another chance to fly Island Air last week and are reporting on that experience too.
Island Air Flight Delays
“Your constructive comments are an opportunity for us to learn and do better. We have made great strides in the customer end of the business and I look forward to reading your next blog. We are already changing some procedures based on your comments.” –Paul Casey, CEO, Island Air
Service delays have been widely reported following the company’s introduction of older ATR-72 turbo props. We’ve heard they plan to refleet in the near future based on reliability issues with those planes, but have not had official word on that. The issues we encountered when we last wrote about Island Air, however, were about their lack of knowledgeable personnel on the ground, extremely long wait time and our inability to get accurate information about flight delays.
Island Air Responds
See Island Air CEO Paul Casey’s comments which are inset. Mr. Casey went on to add, “We are committed to our customers. Although things can go wrong in this business we are improving our communication with all customers as well as creating a better check-in experience and improvements in the departure area such as charging stations for portable devices and free wifi.”
Changes Coming to Island Air
We also heard from Island Air’s director of station operations who indicated the following changes:
1. Additional check-in kiosks to alleviate the extremely long line we encountered.
2. Improvements in announcement systems to assure customers are aware of accurate flight status.
3. New personnel. At Kauai for example, Island Air is adding their own personnel so that they have a company representative on the ground at all times.
4. Call center enhancement. Customers will now be able to ask to speak with a directly Island Air company employee for any issues that arise.
Our Return Flight Last Week Was Also Delayed
In spite of the changes ahead, they are still in the works. We checked in for our return flight on Saturday without any wait. In the boarding area however we were told the flight was delayed an hour due to inclement weather all day on Lanai. This was not communicated at check-in or when we queried flight status online before arriving at HNL.
We could have used the extra hour in Honolulu instead of waiting at the airport. Our recommendation is to keep flight status updated online which would have left a better impression. According to the Honolulu station manager, the flight delay was only determined after we checked-in for our flight and about 30 minutes before scheduled departure. Our question to him was if flights were late all day, couldn’t Island Air have determined a delay earlier (and subsequently updated online flight status)?
We welcome your comments.
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I think that it’s a crime that there aren’t Kamaaina discounts in place. We should be able to purchase a book of tickets like in the old days. This would increase our ability to go inter island more frequently. As it stands the prices are ridiculous!
Island Air is completely unreliable and we don’t expect them to resolved their mismanagement issues any time soon, so we don’t plan on flying them again. Every time we flew them they were always late and never notified us, even though they had our contact information. Plus they got rid of flights between Maui and Molokai.
Aloha,
I flew this past Saturday on Island Air to molokai 8:30am flight. They
Did cancel the 6:30 am flight to Lanai, but those lanai passengers
Went with us to molokaki and onto Lanai. So in this instance I believe
It is good practice to get to the airport as you are scheduled. flights
And circumstances can change rapidly. I enjoy flying Island Air as I prefer
A larger aircraft. Shoots I sit in traffic longer at times than I do waiting
For a flight.
Mahalo
We travel to Hawaii each year and booked Hawaiian Air for July instead. Mainly because of a long delay we had experienced. If their reputation improves, then we would consider them again also.
We won’t be taking a chance on Island Air during our Hawaii trip this spring. Whenever our next trip comes around in a few years perhaps they will have built a better reputation. We’ll wait and see.