A Hawaiian airline known for flights between islands wants to leap between continents, connecting Rockford with Honolulu in March, and London in May.
But Mokulele Airlines, through its subsidiary Mokulele Tours, must first get approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate public charter flights.
Thursday, it got support from the Greater Rockford Airport Authority, which said it would agree a one-year, $1.4 million revenue guarantee for Mokulele to launch both routes, pending FAA approval. Hawaii service could start March 16.
“Tonight, this is our commitment to that process,” said Amy Ott, interim director at Chicago Rockford International Airport.
Adding flights to Honolulu International Airport and London’s Stansted Airport, about an hour north of the city center, would fit well with the airport’s focus on vacation travelers, and give it a long-coveted international route.
“Part of our strategic plan is to grow our destination base and in particular grow our international base,” said Ott. “We believe both of these products will fit with what we offer.”
The airport has been aggressive with revenue guarantees to entice airlines to fly from Rockford. It has deals with Frontier Airlines‘ route to Denver, which makes its inaugural flight Friday morning from Rockford, and Apple Vacations to both Cancun, Mexico, and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.
Such deals ensure that airlines won’t lose money on a route because the airport will subsidize it if it doesn’t meet performance thresholds.
While the Mokulele agreement could potentially cost $1.4 million – $700,000 per route — that’s the worse case scenario. Ott said the deal’s structure may be advantageous to the airport. On the first 26 flights, the airport’s exposure is $18,000; on the second 26 flights, it’s $9,000 per flight.
Ott said that both flights will start during peak travel seasons, when the airport’s exposure is greatest but also when tickets sales are likely to be strong. In addition, London hosts the Olympics next summer and will be a hot ticket.
Ott said internal airport projections suggest the airport’s exposure on each route is $200,000 to $400,000.
Phil Rubin, airport commissioner, said the potential charter deals is “stepping out of the box a little bit.”
“This is an investment,” Rubin said. “We don’t look at it as an expense.”
Ho-boy…. Mokulule can’t make any money running inter-island, but the are going to try and out do Alliegiant on Alliegiant type stuff.
Lets break this out a bit. Alliegiant got the 757′s hoping to run HI-mainland flights. But they are stuggling on their ETOPS stuff, so the 57′s are getting used elsewhere(RFD-LAS).
Mokulule is a joint-venture between Mesa and Republic Airways. Republic also happens to be the parent of Frontier Airlines, our newest RFD carrier.
Now suddenly Mokulule an airline with Cessna’s and a handful of CRJs in their fleet are going to fly long haul stuff. What charter carrier with long haul aircraft is signing on for this??
Of course with some of the DoD stuff ending in Iraq.. I wonder if RFD’s own Ryan International has idle long haul aircraft???
Will, this fall Mesa sold Mokulele to Transpac Aviation, which is based in Arizona. They’re leasing a 767-200 ER for the routes, according to to the airport. It’s apparent that Transpac is looking at a new business model for the airline, including regular low-cost charter service from airports like RFD. I’ll be reporting more about this, hopefully next week. Brian Leaf
Thanks… I found this line from the West Hawaii Today website on the sale very funny.
Hansen said in a written statement he had no plans to make major changes at the 13-year-old, Kailua-Kona-based airline.
I would have to imagine this aircraft has to be wet leased, or they are having a charter operator run these flights. They would have some pretty heavy lifting to do to add a 767-200ER to their existing AOC. Considering right now there are 4 Cessna 208-B Caravans on their certificate.
Actually, Mokulele operates just the Cessna 208. Go! Mokulele is a joint venture between Mesa Air Group’s Go! (which operates the CRJ) and Mokulele. Before the joint venture started, Republic invested in Mokulele and one of their other airlines sent a few Embraer 170 jets to Hawaii to operate for Mokulele, but those left when the joint venture started and Republic reduced their investment in Mokulele.
Good luck. At the very least maybe they will get some Londoners interested in travelling to HI. I they build a customer base before they crash and burn, it could save HAL some advertising if they ever decide to go to Europe with their Airbuses. With the state of the European economy this is probably not the best time to be making these kind of moves, no? Oh well. Mokulele seems to get passed around pretty mercilessly; first the DigiPlayer guy, then Republic (that died quickly), then Mesa, now this Transpac guy. They should just stick to the Caravans and leave it alone; it’s actually a nice little company interisland as it is with the small planes, kind of takes the place of the old Air Molokai, etc.