Mokulele to spend $10M to expand fleet in wake of issues | News, Sports, Jobs

July 21, 2024

A pair of Saab 340 aircraft are pictured at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu. Southern Airways, the parent company of interisland carrier Mokulele Airlines, is planning to bring another 28-seat Saab 340 to help supplement flights to Molokai and Lanai after a combination of bad weather, a damaged aircraft and an aircraft inspection caused delays and cancellations earlier this month. Photos courtesy Southern Airways/Mokulele Airlines

Mokulele Airlines will invest $10 million in additional aircraft for its fleet starting in April, in hopes of preventing the cancellations and delays that plagued the carrier’s service for its Molokai and Lanai flights earlier this month.

Service in March got off to a rocky start as bad weather, a damaged aircraft and another aircraft’s inspection occurred around the same time as the spring break travel season, which led to problems, acknowledged Keith Sisson, chief of staff for Mokulele Airlines, which is the only airline with commercial scheduled flights to Molokai and Lanai.

“I think by the weekend, all the passengers will be moving without any serious issues at all,” Sisson said on Tuesday morning.

A new schedule also rolled out March 1 but had been made in advance of the issues. Sisson said the new schedule added extra time to each flight and allowed for more ground time between flights to minimize delays if the flights were to get behind earlier in the day.

Mokulele’s two existing Saab 340 aircraft were the ones that ran into problems earlier this month, as one was damaged by a piece of ground equipment while the other one was undergoing a five-year inspection. Flights on both of the 28-seat cabin-class aircraft are expected to resume this week following a successful inspection, a news release said on Monday.

Southern Airways, parent company of Mokulele Airlines, plans to relocate three new Tecnam Travellers to Hawaii in the coming weeks as temporary reserve aircraft for the Mokulele Cessna Grand Caravans that are rotating through heavy inspections and fleet refurbishment. The first Tecnam is expected in Hawaii in April.

Another Saab 340 aircraft will join the existing two others in the summer. It is intended to supplement the schedule during peak times and to serve as a ready reserve spare if another aircraft is unavailable.

The first plane to be added to Mokulele’s fleet next month will be one of three new Tecnam Travellers, a nine-seat plane that will be used as temporary reserve aircraft to back up the Mokulele Cessna Grand Caravans that are rotating through heavy inspections and fleet refurbishment, the news release said.

“We are in the process of refurbishing our entire Hawaii fleet with new paint to prevent corrosion caused by the salt air,” said Stan Little, chairman and CEO of Southern Airways, the parent company of Mokulele Airlines. “Southern’s ability to almost immediately deploy three Tecnams to use as reserve aircraft will ensure greater reliability. The Tecnam Traveller is the only nine-seat twin engine aircraft that is in current production, and it is the newest aircraft in the Southern fleet.”

This all comes as Molokai residents have expressed concerns in news reports and social media platforms, saying that the issues with the planes and the weather caused many hardships, from missed doctors appointments to hours spent waiting for flights and overall frustration.

Molokai resident Arabella Ark was one of many who had their flights canceled and delayed earlier this month as she ran into problems with her flights to and from Oahu.

Ark said that on March 8, her flight to Oahu was delayed for five hours, forcing her to keep pushing back her doctor’s appointment on Oahu. Eventually she made it to her physician.

Ark then arrived back at the airport that night around 7 p.m. to go back home to Molokai and was told her flight was canceled.

Luckily, she had told her friend who dropped her off to wait at the airport just in case. She was able to stay with a friend overnight so she could catch another flight home the next day.

Ark said she was not told why the flight was canceled but found out later that the winds were bad.

On March 9, Ark spent $50 to catch a cab around 5 a.m. to make her 7 a.m. flight, which was delayed. After hours of waiting, she finally left for Molokai at 3:30 p.m. that day.

Ark was concerned about medically fragile passengers who were at the airport, such as those who had just been released from the hospital, and another person who only had a limited amount of diabetes medication. She said fortunately there were no medical emergencies.

Ark said Richard Schuman, the Hawaii executive vice president at Southern Airways Express/Mokulele Airlines, “really tries his best,” and that she has “no complaints” against the Mokulele workers “because they are really nice. They do their best against this difficult situation.”

But she faults the parent airline for some of the woes. For example, she said reaccommodations cannot be made at the airport counter, only through a customer service hotline.

Sisson confirmed this and said that their 24-hour hotline handles the reaccommodations because oftentimes they have to work with the Mokulele flight operations department to create new flights the next day for displaced passengers, something that cannot be handled from the counter.

“With the return of our Saab 340 aircraft to the schedule this week, we expect the scheduling changes to subside and a more normal operations to ensue,” Sisson said in the news release. “We have added additional flights onto the Cessna Grand Caravan during this time, and with only a few exceptions were able to get everyone accommodated with limited disruption. The dedication of our crews and airport staff to take care of our passengers during this time has been exceptionally impressive.”

* Staff Writer Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.

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