What Jim said. In addition, while the Q400 may seem like a better suited A/C for the job, it simply doesn't have the capacity (75 seats) to carry the amount of traffic that travels inter island.
Kbb, what's the denial here? You work for SWA, you guys use jets on all kinds of short haul routes, you think SWA would be better off using q400's on their shorter routes? SMF/LAX etc? Of course not. Well it's pretty much the same thing.
The bigger question is, why, on this thread, has a couple of SWA guys tried to slip in some of that " your airline sucks mine is great" warrior spirit crap? Slaquer had a post that tried to make the point that HA was somehow overloaded with debt but didn't own any of their A/C (thanks Andy for the research) and KBB thinking HA could switch to an all Q400 fleet inter island shows a blatant lack of knowledge about Hawaiian Air and inter island flying.
I get the fact that I've ruffled your feathers with my take on your merger ( you get one guess why I would stick up for the smaller airline in any merger) but I certainly don't feel the need to put down SWA and all they have accomplished to try and bolster what my airline is doing. I mean really, the whole ALPA sucks SWAPA rules, my airline is great yours is not crap is pretty silly. I don't wish you guys ill, the reality is that the music has stopped for all our airlines and we all have chairs , non of us are going anywhere. Personally I think we are going to enter an era of big gains for all of us. The 3 big legacies are all going to be much stronger financially than the large carriers have ever been and with only 3 big legacies, their will lots of opportunity for the HA, AK,SWA,JB etc. to prosper. You just have to look at the retirement numbers and new min time requirements at the regional level to see that the supply and demand equation for pilots is about to become much more favorable for all of us. So you really don't need to see other airlines as the "enemy" We all need to see that when any other airline does good, it's better for all of us. The days of pilots taking concessions to compete are behind us, especially now with the impending demise of the USAPA social experiment. SWAPA doesn't need to see ALPA carriers as the enemy either. So you guys can chill with the passive aggressive comments towards HA......damn, I almost twisted my ankle stepping off my soapbox!
