Aloha Airlines files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

[mdanno808]

http://starbulletin.com/2005/04/05/business/index1.html

Good luck guys.

 

[mdanno808]

http://starbulletin.com/2005/04/06/business/index1.html

How bad is the contract management has proposed to the IAM?

 

[AQ PILOT]

The part about terminating ALPA's retirement plans was a misprint by the paper. It was fully denied by the company.

Of course, that's for now.....

 

[CWASaab]

Of course, that's for now.....

Exactly. When it comes time to get some exit financing Aloha will be targeting the DB plan. They'll tell the employees we won't get any money if the company still has those liabilities.

 

[English]

A friend of mine who has a very good inside connection at MatlinPatterson told him the night before they first pulled out that they wouldn't invest unless the A plan went away...

 

[AQ PILOT]

Heard the same thing...Only thing I gotta wonder is how much of this is true and how much of it is all fishing? How many times have we 'narrowly averted' closing the doors so far. Each time it is the same story. And each time we somehow just manage to eek by. Don't get me wrong, I think we are in a world of hurt, but some of this is just too much!

 

[RJP]

Ah, corporate greed in america. Lovely.

Why is it that the employees that work hard day-to-day to keep an airline running are the ones that get boned for mismanagement, poor planning and idiocy?

AQ's a perfect example. They ran an interisland airline for decades without bankruptcy (correct me if I'm wrong). Then they decide that they're going to expand to the mainland with totally inadequate equiptment for the job. They end up flying half full to carry enough fuel to get home. The company decides to drop half it's mainland destinations and all it's South Pac routes (the only direct route to the Marshall Islands) and end up selling off their rugs and paperclips.

So, out of the blue, they cry poverty and their loyal employees read about their Ch. 11 in the paper. Now everyone can plan on losing their pension, the mechanics will be strong-armed into taking a **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED**ty contract at the risk of having Faris void their current one and management will continue to line it's pockets.

Disgusting.

*stepping off soapbox now*

 

[RJP]

Today's AQ News

Posted on: Friday, April 8, 2005



Conflict alleged in Aloha Air case



By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer




The U.S. Trustee's office yesterday challenged the selection of the Case Bigelow & Lombardi law firm to represent the creditors in Aloha Airlines' bankruptcy case, saying the Bishop Street firm has a conflict of interest because it once represented Aloha.

Case Bigelow & Lombardi and a Park Avenue-based law firm, Otterbourg, Steindler, Houston & Rosen PC, applied in February to jointly represent the official committee of unsecured Aloha creditors. But Case Bigelow failed to disclose that it had issued opinion letters on Aloha's behalf in 2000 regarding loans made by First Hawaiian Bank, according to the U.S. Trustee's motion.

The office of the U.S. Trustee represents the federal government in bankruptcy proceedings and argued in its motion yesterday that Case Bigelow's "failure to disclose its direct conflict of interest in representing the interests of its client, the (creditors) committee, disqualifies it as counsel. ... The committee should not be represented by a party with a direct financial stake favoring an outcome against the committee's interests."

Case Bigelow has filed subsequent disclosure statements about its past relationship with Aloha, according to the U.S. Trustee's motion, but "it appears that the firm still falls short of providing full and forthright information."

Case Bigelow attorney Ted Pettit, who filed the motion to employ Case Bigelow in the case, did not return telephone calls yesterday.