Rumor or Fact about ATA?

[johnsonrod]

I heard a rumor that ATA was going to stop flying scheduled service to Hawaii from California and Arizona. The source was not too reliable - so, can someone from ATA tell me if that rumor is true or not? Was that ever announced? Would ATA's airplanes then be deployed solely on charters/MAC flying? Could Aloha's tough situation change that?

So, what's the status of ATA's scheduled flights to Hawaii? I got a non-pilot buddy who bought some tickets to Hawaii for the end of Summer and it would be good to know whether he should seek a refund, etc.

Thanks

 

[HalinTexas]

As it stands right now, ATA has no plans to pull out of the Hawaiian market. We stop dom. sched. service out MDW in about a week, and int'l sched. serv. out of MDW in June.

However, things do change. Something big is about to happen at (to) ATA. The GAL BOD met yesterday, and there should be some info coming soon.

 

[critterair2]

God I hope I'm wrong, I've got that sick feeling in my stomach that they maybe following Aloha. To be announced before Thur. Lets pray I'm wrong.

 

[On Your Six]

God I hope I'm wrong, I've got that sick feeling in my stomach that they maybe following Aloha. To be announced before Thur. Lets pray I'm wrong.

What's happening before Thursday? Has there been mention of an upcoming ATA announcement?

 

[njcapt]

What's happening before Thursday? Has there been mention of an upcoming ATA announcement?

ATA's President told ALPA that there was something coming soon and to continue to provide our excellent service, stay the course, blah, blah, blah... I stopped listening after that.

GAL had moved the Billary/Obama charters off ATA 737's on to North American 757's, supposedly due to 'publicity issues' and all scheduled service out of MDW is due to cease as of June/July. You can connect the dots. The suspension of scheduled service at Aloha eliminates a potential Hawaii code share or acquisition target by SWA (unless they can resurrect the Operating Certificate and route authority), so the landscape is broken and slippery right now. ATA can't dump any parts of their fleet outside bankruptcy due to lease agreements and the ALPA contract, so any modifications will come under the new bankruptcy process (not that the BK court will ******************** the ATA pilots any less than the last time).

 

[CaptSeth]

I believe New ATA Holdings, which later became GAL through a name change, is a guarantor of a number of items - I do not see bankruptcy as likely unless JPM and MP are willing to write down 400 MM.

 

[alpine1989]

I don't see SWA walking away from the Hawaii market. There was something going on between SWA, Aloha & ATA. That plan is now dead. Where does that leave ATA? SWA is not likely to codeshare with a legacy.

 

[Dan Roman]

SWA recently signed a small package code share agreement with Hawaiian. You can now ship small packages on both carriers. So perhaps they are talking about expanding into a passenger agreement.

 

[Dan Roman]

In fact Hawaiian connects up quite nicely with Hawaiian in LAS and PHX, not to mention numerous other west coast cities.

 

[alpine1989]

Hillary is flying on a USA Jet DC9-30.