Mokulele Airlines grounds portion of its fleet, scrambles to help passengers

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Mokulele Airlines has grounded a portion of its fleet due to maintenance issues and is scrambling to help affected passengers.

On Saturday, Mokulele Airlines said that during routine maintenance procedures, it identified potential discrepancies in the documentation of a recent landing gear servicing on one of its aircraft. As a precautionary step, a portion of its fleet was grounded while additional inspections are done.

In the meantime, Mokulele said it’s working with affected passengers.

“It’s just a lot of you know, uncertainty, and that’s what makes me nervous,” Andrea Dudoit of Molokai said.

Dudoit has a scheduled Mokulele Airlines flight to Moloka’i at 6 a.m. Sunday.

The company hasn’t notified her yet about whether her flight has been canceled.

“I would rather have the plane serviced and repaired than be in the air and have an emergency so that I can understand. I’m totally for it,” said Dudoit. “I think more of a transparency to passengers, to the public, people traveling, even updates via text or email something.”

Dudoit frequently flies to Honolulu for medical appointments.

Louis Saint Cyr, President of Hawaii operations, says in a statement, “We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience this causes our customers, and we are working as quickly as possible to ensure they can get to where they need to go.”

The announcement comes just a few days after Mokulele’s president notified fliers with this letter that the grounding of their 28-seat SAAB aircraft has caused flight disruptions and have been unable to get a replacement engine.

Sen. Lynn DeCoite said she has been in talks with the transportation director, governor, and airports, who are turning to other carriers for help.

“It’s been an outreach to other carriers, such as Trans Air, outreach to Lanai, as well as Kamaka Air if they have available fights that will help accompany or at least support for the time being until they can be up and running within the next day or so.”

The state transportation department said at least three Mokulele flights will operate on Sunday.

Passengers are encouraged to check with the airlines before heading to the airport.

Normal operations are expected to be running by Wednesday.

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