Hawaii-based Airlines - Mokulele Airline begins flights to Hilo (ITO)

Mokulele Airline's website indicates that direct flights to Hilo will begin on May 1, 2009. Special prices of $35 each way are advertised. It appears they are flying four round trips when service starts.

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Another story:

Mokulele to add daily flights to Hilo

By Star-Bulletin staff

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Mar 25, 2009

Fresh off a reorganization last week that infused $3 million in cash into its operations, Mokulele Airlines announced yesterday that it will begin four daily flights between Honolulu and Hilo starting in May.

The company, now half-owned by Indianapolis-based Republic Airways, said yesterday it will use its 70-seat Embraer 170 jets for the service, which it will debut with a special one-way fare of $35.

"The inauguration of Mo-kulele jet service to Hilo will allow even more customers to be introduced to the most comfortable air service in the islands," said Scott Durgin, formerly Republic's vice president for strategic alliances who was named interim president and CEO of Mokulele Airlines last week....

Fresh off a reorganization last week that infused $3 million in cash into its operations, Mokulele Airlines announced yesterday that it will begin four daily flights between Honolulu and Hilo starting in May.... it will debut with a special one-way fare of $35.

http://www.starbulletin.com/business/20090325_Mokulele_to_add_daily_flights_to_Hilo.htm l

Yessssssss!

I think it would be nice to seeing more growth from HNL. I'm sure this route will be very successful route due to competing with HA for HNL-ITO. What about better opportunity where they will begin new nonstop KOA-LIH or etc. I can see good choice for Mokulele need to be more demand growth. It would be console up where they need to be boost up more frequency due to AQ is long gone.

The schedule seems a lot better than Lihue.

HNL-ITO

MW 290 Lv 710A Ar 800A Daily Emb 170
MW 292 Lv 945A Ar 1035A Daily Emb 170
MW 296 Lv 425P Ar 515P Daily Emb 170
MW 298 Lv 650P Ar 740P Daily Emb 170

ITO - HNL

MW 291 Lv 820A Ar 907A Daily Emb 170
MW 293 Lv 1110A Ar 1157A Daily Emb 170
MW 297 Lv 535P Ar 622P Daily Emb 170
MW 299 Lv 800P Ar 847P Daily Emb 170

I wish Mokulele would start service between Hilo and Kahului. Hawaiian had only 1 direct flight in the morning :(

I've encountered E175s on "Compass" NW Airlink flights, and KL CityHopper has just recently started acquiring E190s (presumably to eventually replace its F100s), so I've been aboard PH-EZC a couple times in the last couple weeks too. The E-Jets really do strike me as quite nice, so I'm eager to try Mokulele, and not out of the "anything but go!" mentality some of my friends have expressed.

So our interisland options will now range from 8F/110Y B717s (avg. fleet age 7.6 years) to 6F/64Y E170s (avg. fleet age 2.5 years) to 50Y CRJ2s (avg. fleet age 8.8 years). Any size jet you like, and everything's under 10 years old. (By way of comparison, Aloha's newest 732s were ~20 years old when it ceased ops, and the oldest were nearing 40!)

Flew Mokulele this weekend. Everything went off without a hitch. The E170's board very quickly. Plenty of bin space for everyone. MORE legroom and underseat storage than on a 717.

The boarding passes coming out of a receipt printer kind of cracked me up, though.

Our flight to LIH even had ex-CEO(but still head of sales and marketing) Bill Boyer on board.

Have to say I'm now a huge fan of Mokulele. Really hope they're able to stay in the game.

Both flights were full but for 3-4 seats. However, it was peak time for those going holoholo.