I'm a Hawaiian pilot, and I think in the end, this will be a pretty good deal for everyone involved.
I don't think we could have gotten a better CEO than Brenneman, who brings a lot of actual airline experience to the merger, something that is often lacking with many airline CEO's. He is now saying we'll probably have our full compliment of 767's plus a dozen more 757 to serve smaller markets on the west coast, plus probably expansion to Japan.
Aloha's old 737-200's will go away, as well as their 737 NG's. We'll replace them with new 717's. There will be some cutback on the interisland routes (about 10%), but there is a good possibility furloughs will be kept to a minimum because of the training bubble for the guys transitioning to the 717's, and the new 757's. Brenneman says we should have 7 - 10% growth starting in 2003, so it will be a good place to be. Right now we have 20 on furlough, and Aloha about 25. With a little bit of luck, and good barganing from the union, we should not lose any more, and will have those back soon so we can start hiring again in less than a year.
A LOT of the complaning from the islands is unfounded. Brenneman has already promised to keep interisland fares for locals at about the same they pay now, and frequency of flights won't be a noticable change. One group that will be hurt, are local travel agents that until lately made a killing on selling 'coupons' for interisland travel. The wholesalers (travel agents) bought huge blocks of tickets from the airline, sold them for $60 each way, and pocketed $20 off each ticket, making it a losing proposition for the airlines. The airlines kept selling them though, to keep people in the seats. Brenneman will cut out the agents (causing them to howl in anger), and make it a profitable endevour for the new airline.
Any other questions fire away.
HAL