Airline addressing delays for Maui-to-Oahu flights | News, Sports, Jobs

Hawaiian Airlines President and CEO Peter Ingram speaks to the Maui Chamber of Commerce Thursday afternoon at the Maui Beach Hotel in Kahului. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photos

KAHULUI — More “tweaks” in Hawaiian Airlines’ schedules will be made this month in order to alleviate delays for Maui residents and other travelers that are related to work on one of the runways at Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, the head of Hawaiian Airlines said Thursday.

Hawaiian Airlines President and CEO Peter Ingram said that between October and November, “our reliability dropped off” as work on “runway 8 left” on Oahu began in October. It is the airline’s main arrival runway at the airport.

Ingram said that with the construction issues, interisland flights were being held off as air traffic controllers wanted to get the longer-haul flights that had been flying for six hours or so on the ground first, rather than the shorter interisland flights.

“They would tell us just sit there and wait,” Ingram said.

For example, the airline had reports of its planes at Kahului Airport taking 45 minutes to get from the gate to taxiing down the runway to make the flight to Oahu.

Hawaiian Airlines CEO Peter Ingram listens to agreement from some Maui Chamber of Commerce members after answering an icebreaker question posed by chamber President Pamela Tumpap Thursday. When asked his favorite movie, Ingram said it had been a while since he had been to the theater, but he was enjoying watching the television series “Yellowstone.”

“You can’t make that 45 minutes,” Ingram told the audience at a Maui Chamber of Commerce luncheon held Thursday at the Maui Beach Hotel, where he was the keynote speaker.

Ingram added that when issues arose in October, crews’ schedules had already been made for that month and November, so the next chance they had to make flight changes was in December.

“We tweaked the schedule in December and things started running a little bit better and we have more tweaks in January. We put some buffers in the middle of the day,” he said. “It’s not going to be perfect, but we are going to make it better.”

Ingram explained that with a tight flight schedule, things could snowball into long delays if one flight is delayed for 15 minutes, then the next flight is also delayed 15 minutes, which will all catch up with flights later in the day.

He said the flights primarily affected are those from Maui to Honolulu and from Lihue to Honolulu.

The Honolulu runway work is expected to continue into May, Ingram said, noting Hawaiian could not just decide “we are going to run a crappy operation” until that time.

So as soon as they could, they adjusted their flight schedules, Ingram said, although he did not share specifics on how schedules were adjusted.

“I thank you for bearing with us through that, but rest assured we are not satisfied without running a great operation,” Ingram said.

He also said Thursday that possibly the “worst experience” for their customers is at Kahului Airport, which prompted groans from the crowd.

Ingram said this is another facility problem and “they take time to solve.”

“We got to partner with the TSA and we got to partner with the DOT and we’re committed to doing that,” he said. “Right now Maui is just too full for what the capacity it has. And there’s gate construction going on that you are probably aware of so one gate is closed when they do necessary renovations.”

He said one of the bigger issues over the past year that “I think everyone knows” is the TSA checkpoint lines at Kahului Airport.

Over the summer, lines for the TSA security checkpoint snaked in and outside the terminal with passengers arriving several hours before to try to avoid the rush. The backup occurred primarily from around 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Some measures were put in place to help speed up the process and make it easier on travelers, such as new security screening lanes and a 200-foot tent to shade travelers, along with the use of passenger screening canine teams with TSA.

“There is a long-term project to solve that by adding five more security lanes at the south end of the airport,” Ingram said. “That long-term project is taking too long so again we can’t settle for that, we got to partner with DOT that runs the airports and the other airlines and partner with the TSA and find solutions.”

“The long-term fixes are coming,” he later added. “We are going to continue to invest to make sure that airport experience works.”

As for now, Hawaiian Airlines will aim to remain competitive with Southwest Airlines, which last year put up a low of $29 tickets for interisland flights.

Ingram said those types of fares “make it difficult” and “frankly impossible to make money.”

“But we are no strangers to competition,” Ingram said.

Hawaiian Airlines last year also matched the $29 flights along with a double miles promotion.

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.

Hawaiian Airlines President and CEO Peter Ingram speaks to the Maui Chamber of Commerce Thursday afternoon at the Maui Beach Hotel in Kahului. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photos Hawaiian Airlines CEO Peter Ingram listens to agreement from some Maui Chamber of Commerce members after answering an icebreaker question posed by chamber President Pamela Tumpap Thursday. When asked his favorite movie, Ingram said it had been a while since he had been to the theater, but he was enjoying watching the television series “Yellowstone.”

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