Hawaii News Now reports that, during the Hawaiian acquisition presser, Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci mentioned that Alaska is considering Molokai and Lanai service. However, he tempered expectations by stating that they’d need to study the feasibility of the routes.
Since the demise of Ohana by Hawaiian, the people of Molokai and Lanai have had to rely on Mokulele for vital connections to Oahu and Maui. These routes are a matter of life or death for these communities, as these two islands lack many essentials, such as cancer treatment facilities, etc. Now, this wouldn’t be a huge issue, but Mokulele has been horribly unreliable, hitting people with numerous and delays, which causes them to miss critical appointments, life events, and more.
Hearing of the plight of the people of Molokai and Lanai, and likely realizing how doing so would influence the Department of Justice’s opinion of the merger, Alaska CEO Ben Minicucci announced that Alaska is considering Molokai and Lanai service to provide these communities with much needed relief.
Alaska is Considering Molokai and Lanai Service
I think it’s great that Alaska is considering Molokai and Lanai service. Certainly, something has got to be done for the people that call these islands home. But successfully operating on these routes is going to be exceedingly difficult. In its statement to the media, Mokulele states this, and notes that 15 airlines have tried and failed to operate to these islands successfully. They aren’t wrong, but I’m not here to discuss economic feasibility. Instead, I want to go over something a bit more basic – aircraft suitability.
If we ignore the economic considerations of flying to Molokai and Lanai, you still need to consider the physical challenges of flying these routes. Over on Lanai, the one runway at Lanai Airport is 5,001 feet long, at an elevation of 1,308 feet above sea level. On Molokai, Molokai Airport’s longest runway – 5/23 – is just 4,494 feet long at an elevation of 454 feet above sea level. These aren’t long runways. As a point of comparison, the shortest runway at Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport is 6,952 feet long.
Why does this matter? Well, the Boeing 737NG requires a minimum runway length of 6,161 feet to 7,598 feet at sea level at Maximum Takeoff Weight (MTOW), while the Boeing 717 requires 5,500 feet at MTOW. As you can see, both aircraft require far longer runways than are available at these two airports – at least if you’re to operate them without weight (passenger/cargo/fuel) restrictions. By the way, these are the smallest mainline aircraft operated by both airlines today.
Of course, Alaska does have a regional subsidiary that operates an even smaller jet – Horizon’s Embraer E-170/175s. The E-170, the smaller of the two, requires 5,394 feet at MTOW. Even Horizon’s former Q400 fleet requires at least 4,675 feet of runway length to takeoff at MTOW.
Sure, Hawaiian used to operate their McDonnell Douglas DC-9-50s to Molokai, but they’d operate with less than 50% load factors.
Suitable Aircraft
Thus far, I’ve discussed why the aircraft currently and previously used by both Alaska and Hawaiian won’t work for Molokai and Lanai routes as Alaska is considering Molokai and Lanai service. But what aircraft would work?
- ATR 72 (Island Air): 4,314 feet, 72 pax
- ATR 42 (Ohana by Hawaiian/Mahalo): 3,631 feet, 48 pax
- Q200 (Island Air): 3,280 feet 37 pax
- Q300: 3,870 feet, 50 pax
- Cessna 208EX (Mokulele): 1,476 feet, 9 pax
- Cessna Citation Latitude: 3,580 feet, 9 pax
- Saab 340 (Mokulele): 4,220 feet, 34 pax
- Tecnam P2012: 1,247 feet, 9 pax
- Beechcraft Super King Air 350i: 3,300 ft, 11 pax
- Pilatus PC-24: 3,090 feet, 10 pax
- Pilatus PC-12 (Lanai Air): 2,602 fee, 9 pax
- HondaJet: 3,491 feet, 7 pax
The above isn’t an exhaustive list, but it does show one thing – all aircraft capable of operating from Lanai, and especially Molokai, at MTOW are all tiny. Economically, most of the jets wouldn’t make any sense, and many of them rarely see commercial use, either. The props would make the most sense, though some, like the Saab, aren’t in production any longer.
Final Thoughts
Honestly, I think that as Alaska is considering Molokai and Lanai service, they’ll come to the conclusion that the best way to do so is to go the way of Ohana by Hawaiian and have these routes operated by another airline. In fact, since they’re keeping the Hawaiian brand, it might make sense for them to simply resurrect Ohana by Hawaiian and, like last time, have Empire Airlines operate. Even then, I believe the economics of the routes would be questionable, though resuming these services will give them brownie points with the DOJ.
Of course, if Alaska is going to go through all this trouble, they ought to consider providing service to other under-served airports, too. Those include:
- Hana: 3,606 feet
- Kapalua: 3,000 feet
- Waimea-Kohala: 5,197 feet
Kapalua would be exceedingly difficult to operate from with anything but the smaller prop planes, or a specialty STOL aircraft, the the other two shouldn’t be too bad. At any rate, what do you think? Do you think Alaska will follow through with this suggestion? If so, how do you think they’ll handle it?