Hawaii to spend $5 million flying stranded travelers home

[Midnight Mike]

$5M allocated to hire outgoing charter flights

http://honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs ... /804050307 (http://honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080405/BUSINESS02/804050307)


Looking to help roughly 9,000 ATA Airlines passengers stranded in Hawai'i by the carrier's sudden shutdown, the Hawai'i Tourism Authority yesterday approved $5 million in emergency funding to help hire charter flights to get people home.

[Matt Molnar]

9,000? How did they all get there on ATA? People taking 2 month vacations?

[Midnight Mike]

9,000? How did they all get there on ATA? People taking 2 month vacations?

It's possible, figure the average vacation time is 7 days.

Aloha shut down on 30-March, ATA shut down on 02-April, that is a lot of people that potentially came to Hawaii. Not sure if any cruise ships ended in Hawaii, but, that could be additional people.

Of course the 9,000 is assuming that nobody was able to find alternative means of travel off of Hawaii, but, the Hawaii loads are normally high, so getting a large amount of people off the islands by going standby, well, that is rather challenging.

For a short period of time, extra lift will be required......