Liliuokalani Race

poidog

Seems like a lot of out of state crews were there for the Queen's race...less local crews then usual. Our supposedly local airlines have driven up interisland fares so much...especially for the Kauai state race that our race budgets have been busted. our local airlines are using high interisland fares to subsidize cheaper mainland to Hawaii with connector fares. Hawaiian Airlines even sponsored the Liberty race in New York. When was the last time they sponsored one of our races?
This is what happens when mainland execs. get control of what should be a locally regulated business..Hate to say it..but when all the wala'au was going on about the superferry...this kind of predatory pricing was predicted.

Submitted by poidog on Thu, 09/05/2013 - 3:05pm

jc9_0

poidog, you've almost got it right... but it's the other way around. the long run flights subsidize the losses that inter island flights incur (or at least this is how it used to be). on an average day of flying inter island there are lots of seats open. it's just that demand on weekends like states or Kona maxes every plane out. just my thoughts having once flown the friendly skies over Hawai‘i. it's not feasible to keep planes sitting around for 3 or 4 weekends of overload a year.
suparferry is a whole other can of worms.

#1 Thu, 09/05/2013 - 8:43pm

poidog

Randomly picked..coach..Portland to Kauai....$611.90. Portland to Oahu...$605.50.... Sat. Oct. 12.... $9 to go to Kauai on the interisland plane .To me that is a subsidy...filling seats at cheaper rates to fill their larger distance planes and then nailing locals by not allowing mileage flights or jacking up rates because they have filled seats from off island destinations.
maybe I am just nostalgic for the old times...$40 coupons....families could get together with families, we could go to all the races and not get sticker shock like we had with the states on Kauai. Now we are getting economically separated as islands and our local air carriers are making that happen by looking toward their mainland customers rather then their local customers who have to compete for seats with extravagant fairs...$180 to Kauai for the states from Oahu.? I know a United employee who found it cheaper to go the mainland free and then pay to get to Kauai from San Francisco. If the trend continues...it will be cheaper for out of state crews to participate in our races than Hawaiian crews. I guess Liliuokalani race will endure...gets a huge draw from America and elsewhere and they supply canoes to them...not to Hawaiian crews. Its the Queen's race...hope in the future more Hawaiian crews can still participate.

#2 Sat, 09/07/2013 - 4:30pm