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Travelers at check-in counters including those at Hawaii Airlines were sparse Tuesday afternoon at Kahului Airport. Hawaiian Airlines said there could be more changes in its flight schedules, including possible resumption of some early-morning flights from Kahului to Oahu. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

The head of Hawaiian Airlines said last week that “there is a good chance” that Maui may once again see more early-morning flights to Oahu as the airline is making adjustments in its flight schedules.

President and Chief Executive Officer Peter Ingram was responding to a question about Maui residents not being able to find those early-morning flights for essential services such as doctors’ appointments and therefore needing to stay overnight on Oahu to make appointments the next day.

“There is a good chance of getting some early flights restored,” Ingram said during a virtual briefing with Maui Chamber of Commerce members and guests Friday afternoon. Normally, an annual Maui Chamber of Commerce Hawaiian Airlines Community Luncheon is held in January, but that was changed to a virtual event due to the pandemic.

Ingram said losing those early-morning flights is a byproduct of going from 25 or 26 flights from Maui to Oahu per day, prior to the pandemic, down to around 10 now.

“When you have that many flights, you can be all things to all people,” he said.

Peter Ingram, the current president and chief executive officer of Hawaiian Airlines, speaks to Jeanne Skog following a Maui Chamber of Commerce luncheon in 2018. Ingram at the time was executive vice president and chief commercial officer of Hawaiian Airlines. The Maui News/ MELISSA TANJI photo

“Stay tuned and we will try and solve that one,” he said, noting that changes in flight schedules may be seen as early as the next couple of weeks.

Besides cutting down on the number of flights, fewer air travelers in the pandemic caused Hawaiian Airlines in January to suspend its ‘Ohana by Hawaiian service to Lanai and Molokai. A provision in its labor contracts prevents the airlines from offering the third-party passenger and all-cargo service.

Both the airline and Ingram explained that under a clause in its pilot contract, the airline cannot offer ‘Ohana by Hawaiian flights — which are operated with turboprop aircraft by Empire Airlines as a third-party feeder carrier — when interisland Boeing 717 and Airbus A321neo jet flights operated by Hawaiian’s pilots are severely reduced, as they have been during the pandemic.

“It’s really one of the more disappointing things we had to manage due the course of this crisis,” said Ingram, who also noted that the airlines’ larger planes are not well-suited for Lanai and Molokai airports’ shorter runways.

“But unfortunately, it’s going to be many, many months before we will be qualified to do that type of flying again, probably toward the end of this year,” Ingram said about restarting the ‘Ohana by Hawaiian service to Molokai and Lanai.

In October, the airline also reduced its workforce by nearly 2,500 employees when the CARES Act Payroll Protection Program expired.

The amount was about one-third of its workforce. Ingram did not have statistics on how many employees were affected in Maui County.

But he did have statistics about how Kahului Airport probably has been hit the hardest among Hawaii airports during the pandemic.

He showed a chart noting the change in the number of passengers screened at the top 100 U.S. airports, with a comparison between the second quarter in 2019 and second quarter in 2020.

Kahului Airport was seventh in the nation among airports that had the steepest drop in passengers screened.

Kahului Airport saw a more than 95 percent drop in passengers screened in the second quarter 2020 compared to the same time the year prior. Right behind Kahului Airport was Lihue Airport, which also saw a more than 95 percent drop, and lower down the scale was Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport on Hawaii island, which saw a little more than a 95 percent drop, followed by Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu with a nearly 95 percent drop in passengers screened.

Airports that saw bigger drops in passengers than Kahului included John F. Kennedy Airport in New York and Long Beach Airport in California.

Ingram said while there is contraction, the airlines is also making some expansions to areas they had thought about expanding to in the past, including Long Beach, which will have daily service from Maui beginning March 9.

Ingram said this flight would appeal to those in Orange County, as the drive from there to Long Beach is shorter than the drive to Los Angeles International Airport, which is where Hawaiian currently lands.

“And it’s great for you, if you have kids that are just pining to go see Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. Long Beach is a shorter drive to Anaheim and Disneyland than LAX,” Ingram said.

Hawaiian Air competitor Southwest Airlines also announced service to and from Long Beach Airport to Maui, also beginning in March.

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.

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