Mesa Makes Progress in Hawai'i with Mokulele on the Brink

Two fairly big stories have come out of Hawai’i this week. On the positive side, Mesa’s go! unit has posted its first profit since it began flying. On the flip side, Mokulele is in dire straits after burning through $8 million in just a few months.

First, let’s start with Mesa and go!. According to the airline’s press release, go! actually netted half a million dollars for the quarter on only $11.6 million in revenue. It would seem that lower fuel prices combined with more rational pricing finally paid off for the airline, especially considering that load factor fell year-over-year on large capacity growth. But not all is well at Mesa. The airline is only sitting on $64 million in cash and will “be making significant aircraft lease payments that will impact our cash position” during this current quarter. I suppose there’s a reason the airline has a market cap that just barely clears $2 million.

Now let’s talk about Mokulele. Aviation Week has the story, and it ain’t pretty. Mokulele has already burned through an $8 million loan and only was able to make a $300,000 payment due yesterday by getting agreement from its workers to delay payroll for a few days. They try to act optimistic, but there isn’t much money left in the bank. If they default, Republic, the airline operating the routes, will effectively end up owning the airline. With the kind of cash burn they’ve seen so far, it would be surprising if they wanted to keep their airplanes in the game.

The Hawaiian landscape could change quickly over the next few weeks.