Aloha ‘Oe Pacific Wings

Pacific Wings shut down its Hawai‘i operations today. The Kahului-based airline decided to close its doors here to concentrate efforts on its Essential Air Service (EAS) contracts on the mainland.

With Pacific Wings gone, this leaves MUE without scheduled passenger flights.

Pacific Wings To Close Hawai‘i Operations

Hawai‘i News Now announced on tonight's 10:00P broadcast that Pacific Wings will be closing down their Hawai‘i operations on June 15th. For some time, their operations had been scaling down. Their Cessna 208B Grand Caravans will probably be moved to their other mainland operations. The airline has not made a formal announcement, but employees have told our sources that they were given termination notices effective on June 15th. Their website is also not taking reservations past the same date.

Further information in this Hawai‘i News Now article.

As seen above with N302PW (msn 208B0984), much of their local Caravan fleet has been repainted in to this generic livery. Gone are the colorful liveries that adorned the five Caravans when they began operations in Hawai‘i.

This was N302PW in photo taken in July 2005 at OGG's Commuter Terminal.

Pacific Wings' N305PW

Pacific Wings Airlines has one of their Cessna C208B Caravans parked on the General Aviation ramp. N305PW (msn 208B0828), received a new livery, and lacks the Pacific Wings titles. It was most recently assigned to its Georgia Skies subsidiary, the provided Essential Air Services in the southern state.

Back in 2007, I photographed N305PW when it wore the brown variation of the Pacific Wings livery.

Pacific Wings Caravan Clips Pole At LUP

A Pacific Wings C208B Caravan clipped a light pole at LUP while taxiing, last week (date unknown). N303PW (msn 208B0985), was the Caravan involved in the accident. According to sources, none of the passengers nor the pilot were injured. The Caravan, however, sustained damage to the starboard wing. It's not known whether the aircraft can be repaired there. There's speculation that the Caravan will need to be shipped back to HNL by boat.

Photo of the incident involving N303PW.

N303PW was originally painted in the wave-themed Pacific Wings livery, but the C208B was later assigned to Georgia Skies (a Pacific Wings EAS subsidiary). N303PW was recently brought back to Hawai‘i, without the Georgia Skies markings.

Pacific Wings to Georgia Skies

Here's one of Pacific Wings' Cessna 208 Caravans in the new Georgia Skies livery shortly before it left the islands on November 4th, on a ferry flight HNL - OAK - VGT - TUL - AHN. Pacific Wings was awarded an Essential Air Service Contract in June 2008 to provide service between Atlanta-Hartsfield, Macon, and Athens, Georgia.

Pacific Wings Heats Up The Inter-Island Market

Pacific Wings (LW/NMI) has created Pacific Wings Express as a low-cost subsidiary. The Honolulu Advertiser has an article regarding this latest move in the hot inter-island fare wars. It appears to be a response to the Mokulele Air & go! partnership (go! Express), and possibly Island Air(?).

As the prop blades spin ...