[sanddrag]

Here's an update:

The only flights out of here to Southern California that you can buy are over $800. The school has agreed to let the students fly separately. The students and teacher arrived at the airport at 3 AM this morning. The ticket counter for Hawaiian Airlines opened at 4:15 AM. The people staffing the ticket counter were only called to come into work early at approximately 11 PM last night. They were given a three page poor quality photocopied guide of how to handle displaced Aloha passengers, and absolutely zero training. The numbers they were provided to key into their computer system didn't work at first. Sounds from behind the Hawaiian ticket counter consisted of "They can't do this to us" and "How do they expect us do accommodate all their displaced passengers?" Sounds from the terminal were mostly "Our flight has been canceled" and "everyone is booked" and "luckily we bought them on a credit card so there's some hope of getting our money back"

After more than an hour, the students and teacher were able to obtain standby passes. There are three planes to Los Angeles and two planes to San Diego today. All our crates will be going to Los Angeles. None of the students or teacher got onto the first flight out to Los Angeles. There were zero seats left. Based on this, getting six people on the four remaining flights doesn't seem likely. They have a place to stay for one more night. Hopefully they'll get on flights today. If not, I suppose they'll have to try again tomorrow.

Hawaiian cannot transfer our tickets to another airline (as they would do for overbooked passengers who get bumped) because this only got dumped on them by Aloha, and Hawaiian isn't making any money on shuffling Aloha's people around.

It is understandable that fierce competition can bring a company to its knees. But to ride out every last dollar and suspend flights virtually without warning and to not have a structured collapse system in place to me seems neither gracious nor professional.

Thank you all for the kind words and offers of help. We'll keep you posted and let you know if we need to call upon you.

UPDATE: Hooray! Four of the students got on a flight to LAX. 2 more people to go.