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IT STARTED in January, when Mid Pacific Air filed for bankruptcy. Four months later, Aloha Airlines suffered the first mid-flight disaster in its 42-year history. Meanwhile, Hawaiian Air was courting or being courted by a long line of potential partners.
It's no wonder that local airline executives are throwing up their hands. There had already been enough turmoil with the jittery state of tourism following the economic aftershocks of Black Monday last October. And now this -- a Chapter 11 filing, a mid-air crisis, and an airline in search of a deep-pocketed mate -- all sending the once stable industry into a tailspin.
And all within the first half of 1988.
In the stories that follow, Hawaii Business takes a look at each of the major players -- or in Mid Pac's case, former players -- in a game with high stakes: Hawaii's interisland airline business.
Aloha's crisis
ON THE MORNING of April 22, Maury Myers leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. Myers, president and chief executive officer of Aloha Airlines, was beaming -- and rightly so. Aloha had just completed its 13th straight quarter of profitability. Moreover, with the demise of Mid Pacific Airlines earlier in the year, and with Hawaiian Air in the market for a deep-pocketed partner to strengthen its financial position, Aloha was sitting on top of the world in the interisland airline industry. Reflecting on his two competitors' trials and tribulations, Myers lightheartedly apologized for the lack of a "story" at Aloha.
Six days later on April 28, Myers sat tensely in the same conference room, now converted to a command center, to direct his team of executives and employees through the airline's most serious incident in its 42-year history. On that afternoon, at about 1:45 p.m., Aloha Flight 243 bound for Honolulu from Hilo was suddenly jolted when a large section of the fuselage flew off in mid-flight. The pilots immediately diverted the plane to Maui's Kahului Airport and miraculously landed the badly damaged aircraft. Of the 95 passengers and crew on board, there was only one fatality -- a flight attendant who was sucked out of the plane -- and 62 people who were examined and treated for injuries.
In the following...