Mesa’s go! Airline Exits Hawaiʻi April 1

View from above on approach to Kahului Airport. Photo by Wendy Osher.

By Wendy Osher

Mesa’s go! Airlines will cease Hawaiʻi service on April 1, 2014, according to a company announcement.

The company says the decision to end operations in Hawaiʻi follows “significant growth in the company’s flight operations on the mainland,” and was also deemed a strategic decision to focus on “maximizing growth in code-share operations,” which accounts for over 98% of the company’s business.

Since June of 2006, the airline says go! has served  nearly five million passengers.

“While this was an extremely difficult decision to reach, we believe it is in the best interest of Mesa’s long term strategic objectives, particularly given the company’s ongoing expansion of aircraft in service with United Airlines and US Airways,” said Jonathan Ornstein, chairman and chief executive officer in a company press release.

According to Ornstein, Mesa will be placing 30 EMB 175 aircraft into service with United in June, and is adding four CRJ-900 aircraft with US Airways this year.

“With the significant expansion opportunities in flying large regional jets in contracted service, we are re-deploying the go! aircraft to support our existing mainland operations. An additional factor that we accounted for was the long term increase in the cost of fuel, which has more than doubled since go! began service and has caused sustained profitability to be elusive,” said Ornstein.

Upon the announcement Mokulele Airlines  issued a statement saying it is not part of go!, and has not been since Nov. 2011.

“We had a code share agreement where by they could sell tickets on their site for travel on us and we could sell tickets on our site for traveling on go!  That agreement is over and we have both ceased to sell each other tickets,” said Dave Berry, executive vice president and COO of Mokulele Airlines in an email statement.

“We are honoring each others ticket purchases through April 1st. For travel after April 1st each passengers is being contacted for rescheduling on another airline or given a refund,” said Berry.