The Maui News Sunday, October 03, 2004

'Sanitized' commuter terminal revived at Kahului

By HARRY EAGAR Staff Writer

KAHULUI – Rapidly growing Island Air will inaugurate its first Kahului-Lihue route Monday.

The other tenants are organized as PROP (Part 135 Regulated Operators Partnership). PROP says it welcomes competition from Island Air, so long as it is fair.

PROP, however, says that making the commuter terminal “sterile” for Island Air’s benefit would not be fair.

PROP’s members are Pacific Wings, Mokulele Flight Service, Paragon Air, Hawaii Air Taxi, Maui Air, Marjet and George’s Aviation Service.

PROP and the state Airports Division had a closed meeting Friday to discuss the matter. PROP wants Island Air to use the main terminal at Kahului, which is already “sterile” thanks to security screening by the Transportation Security Agency.

Greg Kahlstorf, president of Pacific Wings, who took part in the meeting by conference call from Phoenix, said afterward, “It’s clear to me, they think we’re blowing smoke.”

He says they are not and have retained a lawyer in Honolulu and hope to file a complaint based on anticompetitive practices as soon as possible, perhaps by Monday morning.

PROP has also written the Federal Aviation Administration to raise safety issues with Island Air’s larger planes, which already are using the commuter terminal.

There are four government entities that could be involved: FAA for safety and flight operation matters, TSA for security, the Department of Justice for anticompetition complaints, and the state Airports Division for ground administration.

Takekawa said last week that Island Air must sterilize Kahului’s commuter terminal, because it will be flying into the sterile Lihue main terminal, which will not accept traffic from an unsterile location.

He said there is a commuter terminal at Lihue, but it is hardly used.

With the exception of Island Air and Pacific Wings, the users of the Kahului commuter terminal are unscheduled, small carriers, running flightseeing tours and on-call interisland hops.

At a strategy meeting of PROP before Friday’s meeting with the Airports Division, all the Part 135 operators agreed to resist Island Air’s attempt to make the commuter terminal a security zone.

It would be time-consuming and expensive for them to become sterile themselves, because that requires a security plan that has to be written and submitted to TSA for approval.

The operators thought they had headed off a move to sterilize their terminal earlier this year and did not hear that the plan was revived until less than two weeks ago.

Today, each user of the commuter terminal is responsible for its own security.

The Part 135 operators object that their terminal has just one gate and just two bathrooms. The waiting area is open – it does not even have a wall.

They question how they can get their passengers through the one gate, and they expect the changes will mean “our passengers (will have) to use portable toilets in the parking lot,” as they told Roy Sakata, the Airports Division deputy administrator who represented the state Department of Transportation Friday.

State and Island Air officials say the situation is not that drastic, and Kahului Airport administrator Jon Sakamoto says there are problems with moving Island Air’s de Havilland Dash-8 planes to the main terminal.

Objections to using the main terminal include mixing props and jets, long distances for passengers to walk and stairs to climb, lack of counter space and – perhaps most importantly – lack of gates.

PROP says it did a survey and discovered that at its busiest, which is a weekday noon hour, only 46 percent of Kahului gates are in use. In fact, half the Kahului gates are ground level, the kind Island Air would use, and are never used.

Sakamoto says that is partly because the size of jets has grown. The terminal was built 15 years ago with ground level and jetway gates alternating. Today, jets tend to overlap the ground gates.

PROP responds that the state required Mahalo Air, which flew planes similar in size to the Dash-8, to use the main terminal.

Takekawa also objected that his planes could not do “pushbacks” from the main terminal gates, to get out after they pulled in. PROP says Island Air pushes back its planes at Honolulu.

Kahlstorf says Island Air has outgrown the commuter business and now that it’s a major interisland carrier, it should go with the other majors.

“What’s the point of having a big terminal for big airlines and a little terminal for little airlines?” if Island Air can stay at the commuter terminal no matter how much it grows, he asks.

Island Air has doubled its fleet to 10 since becoming independent of Aloha Airgroup in May. Its 37-passenger Dash-8 aircraft are 73 feet long with wingspans of 85 feet.

Pacific Wings’ eight-passenger Cessna Caravans are half as large, about 37 feet long with 52-foot wingspans.

Harry Eagar can be reached at heagar@mauinews.com.