Stranded in Hawaii, no joke, help/ideas?

[adengler]

Hey RAWC,
Contact us if you need transportation or a place to stay. We'll help you work it out.
Team 2090
808-375-9263

[Stillen]

rules are meant to be followed. Especially if it may mean the job of who is breaking said rule.... If you must travel is smaller groups, get the parents of whose children are stuck on that island to sign a waiver. PLUS, check with who you booked with, or what credit card they used. There might be some sort of flight insurance, or this case "no flight: insurance.... good luck.....

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Woody1458

Honestly Id say do what you mst to get home. Most likely your district will never find out, not like they have a task force patroling this stuff. And If they do, then I'm sure with enough sweet talk and convincing language you could make them understand you had no other choice.

If it's on the school's bill, they will find out pretty quickly.

I would suggest the following:
Look at the airport's website. That might tell you who flies out of there.
Find the cheapest of those airlines that has a flight to the mainland. LAX or Long Beach Airport, pick one.
Call them and talk to them about your situation.
Repeat as necessary.

Meanwhile, talk to the school about what is going on (if you haven't yet). This is a "special circumstance" that couldn't have been foreseen. Request formal permission to travel as smaller groups to save money/time. Also arrange for extra time off of school...this is not your fault, unforeseen circumstances, etc.

[Aces]

A buddy of mine got stranded in Hawaii 3 or 4 years ago. He managed to get a ride on a ferry that takes new cars from Los Angeles Harbor to Hawaii, and goes back empty. Either LA or Long Beach.

It a long shot,
but if all else fails, cram a bunch of kids on a boat, then hitchhike to West Corvina?

[dtengineering]

I had to check and make sure this wasn't April 1... but dang... it IS real.

While I don't have any helpful ideas (building a raft won't work all that well... the currents take you up past the Aleutians before bringing you back down the coast) I can sympathsize somewhat. It may be possible that one of the local FRC teams can take you in as billets for a couple days until this all gets sorted out.

If an airline is particularly helpful in getting you back home, please make mention of their efforts here. It might influence other teams in a positive way when selecting who they want to fly with.

We came VERY close to having a similar situation in our first year... we flew back from Toronto on Canada 3000 (an absolutely miserable flight... cheap in every way) and when I got off the plane I observed that the airline wouldn't be around for much longer because people would fly with them exactly once. A month or so later, they folded. We only missed your situation by a couple of weeks.

Mind you, we would have been stranded in Toronto...

Jason

P.S. Maybe the school board needs to be a bit more flexible in this situation, too... perhaps the parents back home need to get on the board's case a bit.

[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.

[Fire&Ice]

Have you tried to contact the Hawaii Visitor's Bureau. They have help tourist before. No harm in asking.

[sanddrag]

Everyone was able to get a flight out today on Hawaiian so all is well. Thanks for the suggestions and offers of help, and special thanks to Teams 368 and 2090 for their gracious hospitality and for providing us crates and for hanging out with the last people to leave.

[ZakuAce]

Happy ending are always the best

[Vince lau]

glad everybody was able get a plane home

[TKM.368]

Congratulations to the rest of the mentors of 968 who managed to catch one of the last flights on ATA back home two days ago. ATA has also gone belly up and no longer exists today!

If anyone is interested, 968 is taking AirTran to Atlanta heh heh. Fortunately, that airline seem to be pretty stable

[Madison]

You all put two airlines out of business in one week. How many peanuts did you eat?

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by TKM.368

If anyone is interested, 968 is taking AirTran to Atlanta heh heh. Fortunately, that airline seem to be pretty stable

AirTran rocks

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by TKM.368

Congratulations to the rest of the mentors of 968 who managed to catch one of the last flights on ATA back home two days ago. ATA has also gone belly up and no longer exists today!

If anyone is interested, 968 is taking AirTran to Atlanta heh heh. Fortunately, that airline seem to be pretty stable

WHAT!
Well I hope Delta and Northwest dont close either until after April 22...................when we get back home.
In all seriousness, my sister worked at Aloha for 16 years, so I feel pretty bad for her right now.

[Jared Russell]

This has actually been a really inspiring post to read, believe it or not.

That FIRST teams came out of the woodwork to help 968 get back home safely says a lot about our organization.