Aloha, Aloha

For those of you that have flown to Hawaii it was kinda great that this tiny little chain of islands in the middle of a vast expanse of the Pacific ocean had its own airline. You don't see a lot of "Alabama Airs" or "North Carolina Flyers" or "Green Mountain Expresses" these days. Sadly one of Hawaii's two airlines (the other being Hawaiian Airlines) is going into Chapter 11 and suspending services. The thing that sucks about this is that Aloha was awesome. I flew Aloha in once in 1997 on a family vacation (and yes I still go on family vacations to this day, why is that weird?) you really got a feeling of a locally operated airline that reflected the laid back, beautiful atmosphere of the place the airline was born from (not to mention the most beautiful flight attendants and pilots I have EVER seen). Most domestic airlines today are so corporate, so homogenized, so impersonal, sucked dry by the bottom line of profits.

The really sad thing is, that one of the primary reasons that Aloha is going out of business is the cost of fuel. And wanna know why fuel costs are so high? Not because we don't have enough oil, but it's because speculators are betting on oil and getting rich off those bets. The more they bet the higher the price, the more money they make. The rest of us end up dropping 20% of our weekly paychecks filling up our tanks, while oil speculators, drop the millions they earn on 5th houses, 10th cars, and $7,000 call girls.

I'm sad to see Aloha go, but apparently other peoples greed got the better of them, not an uncommon refrain these days.