Allegiant Air planned to make a big splash in the Hawaii market this month with five new routes from four mainland cities.
But it turned out to be a big letdown for 662 passengers whose trips were delayed as much as 26 hours last weekend when three planes were grounded overnight due to mechanical problems.
Passengers on Honolulu-bound flights from Stockton, Calif., and Bellingham, Wash., as well as Bellingham-to-Maui passengers, were given vouchers as the apologetic Las Vegas-based carrier tried to remedy the three separate mechanical incidents.
"It’s totally unpredictable, just like the weather," Allegiant spokesman Carl Zablotny said Wednesday. "If something happens, we just want to fix it and get it out there as quickly as possible. We’re safety-conscious. Passengers aren’t happy, but you just have to be patient because safety is the highest concern."
Passengers on the second-ever Stockton-to-Honolulu flight suffered the worst of it as their Sunday afternoon flight was delayed 26 hours and they didn’t arrive in Honolulu until 11 p.m. Monday rather than at 9:05 p.m. Sunday as scheduled. The passengers were each given $225 in vouchers for future flights, two meal vouchers and, if they had hotel reservations in Honolulu, were reimbursed for two nights.
"We did go all out to rectify the situation," Zablotny said. "We’re a vacation company and we want to see people have fun on vacation."
Passengers on the Bellingham-Maui flight on Sunday and the Bellingham-Honolulu flight on Monday were given $150 in vouchers for future flights, two meal vouchers and, if they had hotel reservations in their arrival cities, had one hotel night refunded.
In all three flight delays, the passengers also were put up for the night in their departure cities if they lived 50 miles or more away from the airport.
Thirteen of the 662 affected passengers decided not to go on their trips and accepted refunds, Zablotny said.
Service that began this month to Honolulu from both Santa Maria, Calif., and Eugene, Ore., has experienced no such mechanical interruptions, he said.
Zablotny defended the maintenance record of Allegiant, which owns five 223-seat Boeing 757s for use on its Hawaii flights. Allegiant bought the 757s from a European carrier. Allegiant also has 59 MD-80s that it flies on its mainland routes.
"Our maintenance is the highest standard," he said. "We go through more maintenance than other airlines do because we don’t fly as many hours, yet our service schedule is probably greater than what they’re getting with the other airlines. We’re very safety-conscious."
Zablotny said the maintenance problems over the weekend with the three aircraft were unrelated, although he said he couldn’t go into details on the extent of the repairs.
"They were separate unrelated incidents," he said. "It was just unusual that they happened within two days."
He said the mechanical problems had nothing to do with the airline’s rapid expansion to Hawaii and said Allegiant had spares that could be used but had to be relocated.
"Our aircraft only fly about a third of the hours as they do with other airlines because we only offer service twice a week (or less in some cases)," he said. "We just have to relocate them and it takes time to fly them to where they’re needed. We do have aircraft that are not constantly being used that are available for backup."
Allegiant, which primarily connects secondary markets to leisure destinations, entered the Hawaii market in late June with service yo Honolulu from Las Vegas and Fresno, Calif. In February, Allegiant will start weekly service to Honolulu from Boise, Idaho, and Spokane, Wash., and will fly three days a week from Phoenix.
Those additions will give Allegiant connections from nine mainland cities to Hawaii. Planned weekly service to Honolulu from Monterey, Calif., that was supposed to begin this month was canceled in October due to low demand.
