Aloha Air Cargo to Cease Los Angeles-Honolulu Freighter Service

The route is marketed by Aloha, which signs customers and accepts bookings, but sister airline Northern Air Cargo flies a Boeing 767 for Aloha on a charter basis. Aloha operates the route five days a week.

Both companies are subsidiaries of Saltchuk Resources, a diversified freight transportation, logistics and energy distribution holding company based in Seattle. 

"The lane has been underperforming for a while. It's a tough market and it wasn't coming back" said April Spurlock, director of marketing and communications at Saltchuk Aviation, in a phone interview.

Other carriers that provide cargo service between Hawaii and the U.S. mainland include passenger carriers Delta Air Lines DAL, Hawaiian Airlines, Southwest Airlines LUV and United Airlines UAL, express carriers FedEx FDX and UPS UPS, and Pacific Air Cargo, a freight forwarder that operates a single Boeing 747-400 leased from Kalitta Air. The freighter, crewed by Kalitta, operates six days a week between Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and Honolulu, with weekly service to American Samoa and Guam. 

Spurlock said the discontinuation of service between LAX and Honolulu "has zero impact" on Aloha Air Cargo's interisland freight and mail service. Aloha Air Cargo operates three Boeing 737-300 converted freighters and one 737-400 between Honolulu and Oahu, Hilo, Kahului, Kona and Lihue. It also has a transportation agreement with Northern Air Cargo to operate another 737-300 in Hawaii, according to aircraft tracking sites.

After the 767 ends flying on June 1, it will remain at Aloha's Honolulu airport base until it goes to a maintenance hangar for a major scheduled inspection late this year, Spurlock said. It could be used off and on as a reserve plane for Northern Air Cargo while waiting for that C-check, if needed, she added.

Aloha Air's decision reflects the difficulties smaller, regional all-cargo operators have had staying cash- flow-positive even as the global air cargo sector recovers from a protracted freight recession that lasted until last August. Bluebird Nordic in Iceland went out of business on April 30, citing difficult market conditions in the European market. iAero, a Miami-based charter operator that counted DHL Express as one of its customers, closed down last month. Amerijet, also in Miami, has returned six aircraft to lessors and parked other aircraft, and it plans to reduce its cohort of pilots to save money.

Meanwhile, Saltchuk Aviation's leasing subsidiary took delivery of two 767-300 converted freighters from Boeing this year and put them in storage until business picks up for Northern Air Cargo and its other airline units, as FreightWaves reported.

Derek Lessing, who heads supply chain and e-commerce consultancy Cirrus Global Advisors, said on LinkedIn that the elimination of Aloha's widebody capabilities could be difficult to replace for shippers of oversized cargo and dangerous goods.

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