Go! Mokulele said unscheduled engine changes on three of its aircraft in an already shorthanded fleet are behind the flight delays and cancellations over the last three weeks that have prompted complaints from upset passengers.

Chris Van Den Heu­vel, general manager of go! Moku­lele, declined yesterday to disclose how many flights on its 50-seat CRJ200s were affected but said the airline has approximately 50 departures a day with its CRJs and another 50 a day with its nine-seat Grand Caravan 208B turboprops.

"We had a little bit of a challenge in the operations area," Van Den Heu­vel said. "It’s the worst we’ve had in the five years we’ve operated out of here. It’s all related to three unscheduled engine changes, and those particular engines are hard to come by. We had to go out and find a vendor on the mainland to provide us with engines over and above what we have in stock because those engines were being refurbished."

Passenger Maile Bellosi said she waited hours for a flight from Hilo to Hono­lulu after her go! flight was canceled only to end up buying a "really expensive" one-way ticket on Hawaiian Airlines. On another occasion, she said, her husband endured sitting in the Hilo Airport "all night long" waiting for a flight.

Van Den Heuvel said the three affected aircraft are back in service now, but an additional aircraft that already was out of service remains on the mainland for scheduled heavy maintenance. Go! Moku­lele has only five CRJ200s in its fleet when it is at full capacity. He said go! Moku­lele was operating with two to three CRJs during the slowdown.

"Unfortunately, it all happened in a three-week period, and we did what we could do to move people through the islands and minimize the impact, but we’re somewhat limited because we can’t put them on a bus," Van Den Heu­vel said. "We got to set them up on other airlines."

Van Den Heuvel said it was able to accommodate some passengers on Island Air, which flies 37-seat de Havilland Dash-8s, and code-share partner Moku­lele Airlines. However, he said that go! Moku­lele does not have a reciprocal agreement with rival Hawaiian Airlines.

He said passengers who couldn’t be placed on a flight the same day were put in a hotel and given meal vouchers and, in some cases, travel vouchers.