Originally Posted by
asu-ua772
HA used to fly the 717s into MKK and LNY about 10 years ago as part of a twice-daily triangle routing HNL-LNY-MKK-HNL (and/or vice versa), and probably flew the DC-9s there also after Mahalo Air went out-of-business.
There were severe weight restrictions on the 717 getting out of both airports (even more so at MKK with its 4500' runway). IIRC, something like more than half the seats were blocked off departing MKK...making the route so unprofitable for HA they couldn't wait to drop it and give it to Island Air.
I suspect the flight time on the LNY-MKK portion of the route was a total of 7 minutes on the 717. Also, there were stories somewhere that the 717's BMW/RR engines overheated because of short stage flying and quick turnarounds, much quicker and shorter than other inter-island routes so I suspect HA wanted to unload the route as fast as possible.