Spirit of Aloha | Message of Aloha | March/April 2005

Setting Out a Southern Strategy

Aloha and welcome aboard. In February 2000, Aloha inaugurated trans-Pacific service with daily flights between Oakland and Honolulu and Oakland and Maui. The next service expansions came a year later when Aloha tagged Las Vegas on to Oakland and then added Oakland-Kona. In a year’s time, Aloha had secured a Northern California beachhead, enabling this new trans-Pacific carrier to offer three flights a day to Hawai‘i from the San Francisco Bay Area..

In May 2001, Aloha launched service to its second California gateway: Orange County. The first route offered was Orange County-Honolulu; then a month later, Aloha launched Orange County-Maui.

Aloha’s Mainland strategy, targeting Oakland, Las Vegas and Orange County, was as brilliant as it was simple. For starters, the San Francisco Bay Area and greater Los Angeles area are by far the two biggest sources of visitors to Hawai‘i. Then too, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Disneyland in Southern California are clearly the most popular vacation destinations for outbound travel by Hawai‘i residents.

Because smart travelers want to avoid congested and hassle-filled SFO and LAX, Aloha has offered up Oakland and Orange County as wise alternatives. The size, economics and maneuverability of Aloha’s advanced-design Boeing 737-700 made it possible to fly nonstop into Oakland and John Wayne airports; and owing to Aloha’s pioneering program to gain certification for the 737-700 to fly long distances over water, Aloha was the only carrier to offer daily nonstops to Hawai‘i from Orange County, and still is, I might add.

Today, Aloha is very much at home in Oakland, with three nonstops a day: one to Honolulu, one to Maui and one to Kona. We also operate a daily nonstop from Sacramento to Maui and one from Las Vegas to Honolulu. Beginning April 3, we’re going to be boosting our daily schedule from Orange County to five flights a day: two to Honolulu, two to Maui, and one to Kona. And our recently begun San Diego-Maui service is being joined by a San Diego-Honolulu flight, also debuting on April 3. We will continue to fly daily between Reno/Tahoe and Orange County, and Reno/Tahoe and San Diego.

As Aloha embarks on its sixth year of flying between the West Coast and Hawai‘i, we are stepping up our interest in Orange County and San Diego. Why the southern strategy? For one thing, there is a great deal of lifestyle synergy between Southern California and Hawai‘i. It starts with sunshine and surfing, but it goes beyond that, deeper into the demographics of these areas. Orange County and San Diego are enjoying rapid economic growth. Hawai‘i is hot with this target audience and Aloha is satisfying this strong market.

Now that we have focused our Southern California operations on that I-5 corridor south of the Los Angeles County line, we expect to attract a loyal following of frequent Island visitors who don’t want to see LAX again.


We hope you enjoy your flight with us. Let me know how
we’re doing.

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