Hawaii's OHANA

Island Air's Takekawa says he is trying to fit "in-between" by scheduling flights on the fringe times, which are later in the evening after the other carriers have stopped flying. This schedule creates more flexibility for the business person who, after arriving in Honolulu, can fly to Maui, Kauai, Hilo or Kona, perform sales calls, take a client out to dinner and come home. "In the state of Hawaii, the airlines that fly interisland are the "bus service" and it's important to have the frequency." People on the mainland or even the larger islands of Hawaii and Oahu, take for granted going to a medical appointment, purchasing a vehicle or eating at a fast food restaurant. In the smaller islands of Lanai and Molokai, you need to catch a flight for most medical needs, major purchases and Big Macs. "The standard joke for the people of Lania is 'next time you go can you bring back a Happy Meal?'," says Takekawa.

As an FBO, Bradley Pacific operates in five locations which include Honolulu, Hilo and Kona and on the Big Island, Kauai and Maui. They handle any aircraft that has the capability to make it all the way to the Pacific and they maintain at least one or two each of the necessary GSE at each location as well as 37 pieces of fueling equipment. Anusewicz works with both new and used equipment when it comes to GSE. We buy some used GSE equipment, tugs and GPU's, much of it "as is," just to get the carcass. We are able to take it from there and do it cheaper," remarks Anusewicz. "We've picked up a few things in trade. We also talked to Aloha about Bradley fueling their aircraft primarily on the outer islands." Bradley Pacific acquired Aloha's old trucks and put them back into service, however, for the most part, they try to purchase their refuelers new. The fuel trucks for Maui, a five-million-gallon a month operation, were custom built for the public roads due to lack of airport storage. Currently they own six 10,000 gallon refuelers and just bought two 5,000 gallon refuelers.

Because of the infrastructure on the Big Island of Hawaii, all of the fuel that is barged from Oahu first goes to the Hilo terminal and then thirteen 8,000 gallon loads a day are trucked three hours along the coast to the fuel farm managed by Bradley. "For 20,000 gallon plus uplift for one 777 departure, more than two trucks have to be on the road at the right time to get it to the airport," explains Anuscewicz.

Growing Together

Ironically, during the last three-year slump for the mainland, Hawaii has been a growth market since 9/11. "In fact," recalls Anusewicz, "We (Honolulu) came back quicker than any city in the nation as far as the flight schedule and we just kept increasing." There was great concern about traveling to foreign countries, so Hawaii, though always a popular tourist destination became an exemplar location. "You might say it's been a growth market for many years because it's Hawaii," says Aloha's Best. The Asian market grew for many years until the bubble burst in the early '90s. There has been gradual growth from the mainland, but according to Best, the big change has been the growth in direct flights to the outer islands.

For example, American Airlines, for which Aloha does all of the handling, had only one flight into Maui in 1998. Today they are doing 6 to 7 flights a day to Maui and two flights a day to Kona and Kauai. "What we are dealing with is a lot of farming out by the airlines, creating growth for our business in the past five years and also the challenge to effectively manage it through intense communication and reporting with our clients," says Best. There is only one American Airlines key liaison who visits Aloha's stations on a regular basis. Each station is solely operated by Aloha employees.

Within five short months, Island Air went from a fleet of four 37-seat aircraft to nine and opened three additional airports beyond the five they were already at, thus flying to every destination in the state of Hawaii. "Along with that," says Takekawa, "we started with 44 flights a day and we are up to 96 flights a day now. What we are trying to do is take the routes and link the cities in the low density locations." One example of the cooperation between one another is the agreement Takekawa has with Aloha, Hawaiian and United to fly the direct routes within the state. This also makes perfect sense for passengers whose flight time has decreased by almost two hours because they no longer have to go through Honolulu. "From day one we have already said that we have no desire to be competitors with them, in essence we are, but what we want to be is complimentary in the marketplace."

Initially, the most important issue for Bradley Pacific was securing quality employees, equipment, and training. To put resources into costly facilities was not the priority.