Important Vegas-Hawaii charter service changing

Friday, Sept. 27, 2002 | 11:07 a.m.

A Boyd Gaming Corp. subsidiary will change its Hawaiian air charter partner -- a big carrier of gamblers to downtown Las Vegas casinos -- when Hawaiian Airlines shifts its charter operation to scheduled service early next year.

Honolulu-based Hawaiian Airlines announced that it would fly its last charter Jan. 31 and reallocate its flight crews to scheduled service, which will include the return of nonstop round trips between Honolulu and McCarran International Airport.

Las Vegas-based Boyd plans to move its charter contract to Tulsa, Okla.-based Omni Air International.

A spokesman for Hawaiian Airlines said Thursday that it hasn't been determined how frequently its flights would operate and when they would begin.

Keoni Wagner of Hawaiian said the airline would retire its fleet of three-engine DC-10 jumbo jets in favor of more fuel-efficient twin-engine Boeing 767-300 jumbos.

The DC-10s are capable of carrying 304 passengers while the new jets will have a capacity of 252, with 18 seats in a first-class cabin. However, the new planes are much more fuel efficient and economical to operate. They also have larger cargo holds than the jets they replace.

Hawaiian already has taken delivery of eight of the new Boeing jets and will have a total of 16 by next June.

Currently, Hawaiian flies an average of just over one daily flight from Honolulu to Las Vegas with a stop in Los Angeles. Wagner said Hawaiian at one time flew nonstop between Honolulu and Las Vegas, but changing economic conditions altered the airline's plans.

In 2001, Hawaiian flew 118,045 passengers to McCarran on scheduled flights and 217,813 passengers on charters. Through July, the airline flew 190,639 passengers to McCarran, but the airport did not break out how many were on scheduled flights and how many were on charters.

Wagner said the new fleet is less suited for a high volume of charter passengers, but there is greater profit potential with the scheduled service. As a result, Hawaiian is cutting its ties with Vacations Hawaii, a Boyd Gaming subsidiary. The $30-million-a-year contract had been in place since 1996 and enabled Boyd to draw thousands of Hawaiian customers to its downtown Las Vegas properties.

A Boyd spokesman could not be reached for comment. Omni is expected to continue to operate seven flights a week as Hawaiian had. Boyd uses the charters to bring gamblers to its downtown Las Vegas casinos including the California, Fremont and Main Street Station.

Omni is in the process of acquiring its fourth DC-10 jet for its fleet. The company already flies charters to Las Vegas from Minneapolis and Detroit with MLT Vacations, a division of Minneapolis-based Northwest Airlines.

"It was an amicable parting of ways," Wagner said of Hawaiian's split with Boyd. "We found we were less suited with each other than doing our own thing. We weren't making much money on the charter with Vacations Hawaii."

Hawaiian, which has been flying for 72 years, is Hawaii's largest air carrier and the nation's 12th largest airline. The company was in merger talks earlier this year with Aloha Airlines, but antitrust concerns scrapped the deal.

In another airline service expansion involving Las Vegas, Dallas-based American Airlines will add nonstop round trips between McCarran and Boston later this year and Miami early next year.

An American spokesman said the airline is shifting capacity in markets it feels have more promising revenue potential.

Beginning Dec. 15, American will offer five flights a week to and from Boston with departures from McCarran at 10 p.m., arriving at 5:57 a.m. the next day, every day except Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The return flights, which also run daily except Tuesdays and Wednesdays, will leave Boston's Logan International Airport at 7:30 p.m., arriving in Las Vegas at 10:24 p.m.

American will compete with America West Airlines, which has two daily flights on the route.

American also will begin seasonal daily nonstops between Las Vegas and Miami beginning March 2. Flights will leave Las Vegas at 7:28 a.m., arriving at Miami International Airport at 3 p.m. The return flight will leave Miami at 1:45 p.m., arriving in Las Vegas at 4:16 p.m.

American will compete with National Airlines, which has 11 round trips a week on the route, and America West, which has one daily round trip.

The airline will use twin-engine Boeing 757 jets on both its Boston and Miami flights.

American, which has an average 25 round trips a day in and out of Las Vegas, is reallocating aircraft and won't remove any flights, a spokesman said.

In another announcement Thursday, Air Canada Tango, a division of Canada's largest airline, said it would begin seasonal daily nonstop flights between Las Vegas and Toronto beginning Dec. 26.

Air Canada already offers nine round trips a week between the two cities. Tango, a low-fare subsidiary of the airline, plans to operate the route with 159-seat twin-engine Airbus A320 jets through April.