Friends,
I've been hearing a lot of stories that all add up to some pretty convincing circumstantial evidence that there may be something brewing between London and Honolulu.
1) Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin Atlantic, and Glenn Zander, CEO of Aloha Airlines, were seen having dinner in a Maui restaurant earlier this month.
2) Zander met with Branson at the Farnborough Air Show a the Airbus pavillion.
3) Zander was seen in London having dinner with Branson in a posh hotel.
4) At a recent meeting, Lee Steele, Dir. of Ops at Aloha, mentioned that Aloha was looking into "other manufacturers", specifically the A319. The talk was it could make it to the mainland from Hawaii. He also said they were very unhappy with the B737-700, and Boeing overall.
5) Aloha has been doing things that would look like they are "cleaning up the balance sheets", like, the sale of Island Air, elimination of un-profitable routes, tightening of schedules, and a possible furlough.
6) The sale of Island Air could have been a pre-emptive move to avoid a Hawaiian Airlines inter-Island monopoly.
So, this could mean only two things. Either Zander and Branson have the warm fuzzies for each other, or a merger/sale is emminent. Could Aloha get a SFO base? Virgin America based in HNL? Hawaiian Virgin? (naw, unrealistic...) Island Virgin (naw, same reason...) Virgin Island, Virgin Pacific? Aloha Virgin?
Any thoughts or supporting evidence?
I've been hearing a lot of stories that all add up to some pretty convincing circumstantial evidence that there may be something brewing between London and Honolulu.
1) Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin Atlantic, and Glenn Zander, CEO of Aloha Airlines, were seen having dinner in a Maui restaurant earlier this month.
2) Zander met with Branson at the Farnborough Air Show a the Airbus pavillion.
3) Zander was seen in London having dinner with Branson in a posh hotel.
4) At a recent meeting, Lee Steele, Dir. of Ops at Aloha, mentioned that Aloha was looking into "other manufacturers", specifically the A319. The talk was it could make it to the mainland from Hawaii. He also said they were very unhappy with the B737-700, and Boeing overall.
5) Aloha has been doing things that would look like they are "cleaning up the balance sheets", like, the sale of Island Air, elimination of un-profitable routes, tightening of schedules, and a possible furlough.
6) The sale of Island Air could have been a pre-emptive move to avoid a Hawaiian Airlines inter-Island monopoly.
So, this could mean only two things. Either Zander and Branson have the warm fuzzies for each other, or a merger/sale is emminent. Could Aloha get a SFO base? Virgin America based in HNL? Hawaiian Virgin? (naw, unrealistic...) Island Virgin (naw, same reason...) Virgin Island, Virgin Pacific? Aloha Virgin?
Any thoughts or supporting evidence?
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Hooters Air comes to mind..
