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interisland travel andshipping can be a pricey proposition. while shippingcompanies can carry goods across the ocean, passengersprimarily rely on air travel. now, that another airline hasclosed up shop in hawai'i, options are even morelimited. how can interisland travel becomemore affordable? >>mahealani: coming up nexton insights on pbs hawai'i, how can interisland travelbecome more affordable? >>mahealani: aloha andwelcome to insights on pbs

hawai'i. i'm mahealanirichardson one of the mosts of insights. for many hawai'iresidents interisland travel is a part of life. whetherit's for business, leisure, or sports, many localtravelers and business owners find that they have few optionwhen is it comes to moving people and cargo between theislands. now, that another airline has closed up shop inhawai'i, what is the likelihood of seeing morecompetitive air fares in the future? consider shippingcompanies meet the demand of

businesses that need to getperishables across the ocean? how can interisland travelabout being more affordable? we invite you to join ourconversation, by callings, e-mailing, or tweeting yourquestions and comments. now to our pam. heidi arringtonhas been a lecturer kapiolani community's college'shospitality and tourism department since 2010 and shewrote the textbook for an airline reservations andpricing course. heidi has been in the airline industryor travel industry for more

than 25 it years. wes nakamais at assistant director of information for the hawai'ihigh school athletic association. studentathletes who need to compete on different islands havebeen feeling the pinch of those rising air fares.darryl grace is the general manager for mokuleleairlines. mokulele offers 120 interisland flights a dayand has expansion plans that include adding flights out ofkalaeloa airport on oahu this summer. and randy grune isthe deputy director for the

state department oftransportation's harbors division. the stateoperates 10 commercial harbors that are used to movepeople and goods between the islands. we invitedhawaiian airlines, island air and the hawai'i tourismauthority and others in the industry to participate inthis upon but they were unavailable. welcome to ourguests and thank you for joining us tonight. let mestart off with you darryl. i know that you get asked thisquestion all the time,

whether you're in a board roomor baby luau. why are flights so expensive?>> well, i think a lot of it have to look at what is arecould thests associated with running an airline? i knowthat a lot of times the airlines get blamed withcharging high fares but there's a lot that you have tolook at fuel costs. labor costs. insurance. there'sa lot that goes on that the consumer doesn't necessarilysee. and all they really see is the end price that theypay. i don't think

necessarily it's really fairto put it on the airline on the high price. you have to lookat the overall picture of everyone else and whatthey're charging for the airlines to operate.>>mahealani: people who have been in hawai'i fire long timewill get nostalgic and go, i remember the days when we hadcoupons and could just fly to maui or the big island with mycoupon. if you missed your flight, catch the flight 20minutes later. heidi, are we ever going to go back at thatthat time?

>> yeah, you know,unfortunately, i really do see that as cherished memoryof the past. so much has changed and really, thatparticular situation, i think the biggest change has beensince 9/11 when there's just not a lot of flexibility.you have to have a confirmed reservation. you have to bemanifested. there's no such thing as stand by as far as imissed my flight yesterday. let me go tomorrow. just allthe airlines really streamlining their policiesand procedures when it comes

to making changes. also,setting those prices at the beginning with all of thecancellations and penalties. they're getting., much more restricted. >>mahealani: in your classes,you're able to see the airline prices on the computer,right? >> why he. we do at kapiolanicommunity college, we have the travel port system whichis the old dos apollo, but it's the live system. so weactually get to see inventory of the airlines as well as theposted tariffs for any

airline, any route in theworld. >>mahealani: wes, why don'tyou talk about the league, especially one it's on theneighbor islands. they don't know if they'regoing to be winning a championship or not. theyhave to pay for travel if they win.>> we hold 31 different state championship eventsthroughout the year. most of them are on oahu. but some ofthem, we do hold on the neighbor islands. we havesome sports we rotate every 3

or 4 years. so definitely,there is travel, a lot of travel going on back and forthin the winter. fall, winter and spring. and everysummer, 97 member schools statewide. every summer,athletic directors and administrators from everyschool gather and it's always a hot topic as far astransportation and travel. and it's a constant challengethat we face. >>mahealani: are the studentspaying themselves or does the school pay?>> well, the school tries to

fundraise. they areallocated money from the state, public schools are, asfar as covering regular season travel just so they cancomplete their league seasons. however, statetournament travel is basically all fundraising atleast for the public schools. again, that's a challengeespecially not all the communities have the sameresources, so in some communities, they're reallytiny. their economic situation is not thegreatest. so it is a

constant challengeespecially for those schools. >>mahealani: randy, what isthe state's role in the harbors?>> well, in d.o.t., department oftransportation, there are 10 commercial harbors. not tobe confused with the small boat harbors that come underdlnr. land and natural resource.in those 10 harbors, all the cargo, goods and materialsmove throughout the state. it's relative to thepopulation base. oahu two

busiest harbors as you wouldsuspect. honolulu and bashers points, kalaeloa arethe biggest busiest harbors in the state. 80% of goodsand services come through those harbors in into thestate of honolulu, and bashers point and kalaeloa.98.6% of all the imported goods come in by marinetransportation. we import something like 80% of allgoods. so the vast majority of all imports come in throughthe harbor system. it has major up pack and influenceupon our lives an our

community in the state ofhawai'i. >>mahealani: most things arebeing funelled through honolulu. if you're payingfor goods, you look at the price of milk or some thingsthat you can buy at the store. much more expensive than it isit on oahu. especially for islands like molokai, lanai.unbelievable. >> no question about it.second leg of the journey for most goods.>> come into honolulu, then trans shipped or stop here.maybe loads are taken off of

some vessels, empties are putback on. then it goes to it's neighbor islands. youngbrothers is the interisland barge carrier. so a lot ofloads come off of matson and horizon lines. the primarydomestic carriers. it could be a foreign carrier coming tohawai'i. they'll take goods and materials off of thoseship, then transported to the interisland barge carrier toget to the neighbor island ports.>>mahealani: heidi, you have information on the price oftickets. you believe that

the actual base price hasn'treally changed since the 70's, eighties?>> yeah, if you look at the actual base price of ourtickets, even today, even taking inflation intoconsideration, you know, we're really not paying atremendous amount more today than we were back in thosetimes. but what's changed significantly is all theextra fees including you know, those fees for airportsecurity, facilities, and as well as now we're talking onfuel surcharges to offset the

at times, astronomical priceof fuel. the airlines can't absorb all of that. sothat's kind of why ticket prices seem to consistentlybe on the rise and it's just really, really, it's justoffsetting the cost of the fuel for the most part.>>mahealani: darryl, what do you think about that?>> i think what heidi is saying is true. a lot of thecosts now today is a lot of post 9/11 charges. you havetsa, fuel surcharges. a lot of it too, you look at inhawai'i, there's really not a

lot of competition. sosupply and demand. basic economics. you look atequipment that people are using interisland. i thinkpart of how do we get to the point of affordable travel ischanging the culture of what people in hawai'i travel on.>>mahealani: is staffing shortages have anything to dowith it? pilot shortages? >> you know, in particular,for us, it hasn't been. we have not seen any pilotshortages whatsoever that some of the other airlinesonto mainland are seeing. so

i don't think pilot shortagescontribute to any of the air fare charges. but i think alot of it comes back to just once again, the culture ofwhat people are used to traveling on. because thecost of operating a jet is a lot more than operating asingle engine airplane. so people are sticker shock iguess you could say, when they see certain prices, but theygot to understand that it's only a 30 minute leg betweenkona and honolulu. so what they're paying for is trulywhat the airlines need to

charge to keep in business andbe sustainable because if they're not sustainable, airtravel goes away. there is no other method of travel.>>mahealani: wes, how much does it cost let's say to movea typical team? was there ever a point where a team justcouldn't make it it to a championship because of thecost? >> well, we have 31 differentevents. 19 different sports. the size of theteams vary. depending on the sport. a sport likefootball, can have 80, 90, 100

players on team, plus thecoaches managers and trainers. or you might havea golf team with four or five kids. so it depends.yeah, the larger the team, it could run into the five, 10,$15,000 easily. and like you said, that's not evencounting supporters who want to go and watch their familymember play as well. but what we have seen over theyears no matter what the challenge is, people inhawai'i are so passionate about high school sports,we're fortunate and somehow,

they find a way. as far asyour question about a team ever being in danger of notbeing able to afford it, we did run into it i believe a fewyears ago which think it was pahoa high school which imentioned earlier about some communities are very smalland they're not always used to qualifying for a statetournament. i think it was pahoa's volleyball team.there was a question, where are we going to get the moneyto come to oahu. like i said, fortunately because peopleare so passionate about high

school sports in hawai'i.that community just rallied together and other peopleeven rallied to help them. and they found a way.>>mahealani: randy, willie from honolulu wants to know,what about bringing back the interisland ferry? thesuperferry. is it ever going to come back?>> i didn't think anybody was going to ask that question.i figured somebody would. i enjoyed the superferry myselfpersonally. i think the answer to that is never saynever. but at this point in

time, i have not seen, i'vebeen called a couple times in my position over the past fewyears people interested in the ferry business. but ihaven't seen anything really tangible and i don't believethere's anything on the horizon right now. at leastnot that i'm aware of. i think that it has a place inthe transportation system in hawai'i. i don't thinkyou'll see the state getting into that business. it hasto be a private entity that can figure out how to makethat make sense. i can tell

you that the last time around,it was very costly for the owners and operators. theywere losing a lot of money near the end of their tenurein their service. and it cost the state a lot of moneyas well. state made a good investment in that and we'restill essentially paying for that.>>mahealani: in your view, what was the demise? whatcaused the demise of the superferry?>> i don't think it was one thing. i think it was acombination of things.

legal challenges.environmental lists and legal issues. fuel costs went wayup. when it first came out as a concept and the time theywere actually operating, the fuel had gone up three times.that really was the end. that was really difficult forthem to overcome. they also didn't achieve the ridershipthat they thought they would. i told it was very seasonal.learned that it was very seasonal. during the wintermonth, we have pretty good sea states in the channel betweenthe island. very

uncomfortable when you have20-foot swells on the north shore. they didn't get theridership that they expected. it was a volume business andcost thing as well as they never got the second vesselgoing because it didn't make sense. a lot of things cameto a head and they basically once the court said that theyhad to do the environmental impact statement, completethat process, that was pretty much the death nail for thesuperferry. >>mahealani: what is thestateing to with the

passenger terminal now?>> passenger terminal is being used intermittently fortraining and some events. used for apec verysuccessfully for apec when they came here. interagencycooperative sort of base when apec occurred here and it wasvery well received. feds and state and county want to usethat again if they ever have an opportunity. we alwaysget approached for people to use it. but that was builtwith federal money. so there are restrictions to how we canuse it. often people call

for events. because federalmoney built that, terminal, it has to go towards certainuses. and ferry business is primary for its purpose.>>mahealani: darryl, was the airline industry concernedabout the superferry taking away passengers?>> sure. any time you got additional competitioncoming in, there's always a worry about what thatcompetition is going to do. you just don't know.it's all the unknown that really you're afraid of. butcomment randy was saying,

they didn't have theridership they needed to sustain that and kind of goesback to getting people and the culture of hawai'i intraveling to look at other methods of traveling. likeforce for us here at mokulele, we use a single engineairplane. people aren't used to that. it's a 9passenger plane. little smaller. but that'swhy we're able to offer the fares we offer is because ofthe equipment that we fly. >>mahealani: go airlines hascome to an end. how does that

affect an airline likemokulele? >> it affects it in a positiveway. because it allows us to grow, gives us moreopportunities to service other markets that otherwisewe probably couldn't serve. >>mahealani: you also had,people who were confused between mokulele and go.>> kind of unfortunate thing. for the last 2-1/2 years,we've been under new ownership and we've triedevery possible way to get the word out that we're no longerthe same company. we're two

separate companies. we'vegot our own mokulele is a stand alone company andthat's just in hard word to get out. why it's been hardto get it out there. i don't know. we've tried everypossible method of getting it out there. but it was justingrained in people's minds. during that period, now we'rejust working harder to get mokulele back out there andlet people know, hey, we're still leer. we're stillaround and we plan to be here for a while.>>mahealani: randy, brandon

from kailua wants to know,will the harbor improvement plan open the door forpassenger travel by water? >> well, if you're talkingmore about ferries again, i would like to go back to thatbecause i think it's a matter of scale. there's a verysuccessful ferry that runs between maui and kaunakakai.many people use that. it's a much smaller vessel, smallerscale in terms of quantity of passenger. that's a regularlife line between those islands and the communitiesthere. i think it's

successful. but thesuperferry as we knew it, was a very large, big capitalinvest. costly operation. the improvements that we'remaking improve passenger experiences in the harborsbecause some of the things we're doing in some neighborisland ports is improvements we make is are separatingpassenger ships from cargo operations. case in point,port of hilo. administration is making asignificant investment in the port of hilo. more than 60,$70 million is going into a

new neighbor island terminal.pier 4. it's underway right now. under construction.that will separate the cargo operations interisland cargofrom the passenger ships. very dangerous and not a veryattractive thing to come into when you enter a port. soyes, the answer is yes, to brandon. improvements we'remaking,s that one example, it will improve the passengerexperience. >>mahealani: we've got aninteresting question from margeaux. brings up theissue of vegas. everyone

likes to talk about vegas.from the big island. she says, i understand there arefuel costs as well as associated costs of tsa and etcetera. how come it's often cheap tore fly to vegas thanit is to kona or oahu? >> that's a really greatquestion. i think that really has to do, again, withwhat we're talking about as far as supply and demand.there's the bigger aircraft with more seats and morepeople wanting to go do vegas. those specials are offered.they're usually bundled with

packages and it's acompletely different operation.but you're right. i mean, i talked to my students and isay, it's interesting that you can fly round trip fromsan francisco to boston for about the same price as whatwe pay for 20 minute flight island. and it's definitelya challenge and i think it's looking at alternatives to beable to make it affordable again for everybody.>>mahealani: you deal with a lot of families, do you seethe airlines fees, sort of

changing our culture? we'rewilling to go to vegas at the drop of a dime. babe party onanother island or golf tournament somewhere else,might think twice. tell you what, like i saidearlier, amazing how passionate our fans are andour families are. hsa, we've been trying to pilot programthis year going to regional formats for girls basketballand boys volleyball. this is the first time we're tryingit. so talk about last minute. trips. maryknollhad to play on thursday night

or friday night, i'm sorry, atmoanalua. they won the game. that earned them a trip to laheineken a the very next day. and we're wondering how theteam team, i guess, had made plans in advance contingencyplans, and but their fans came out in force. there wasprobably close to 70, 80, maybe 100 maryknoll fans atthe lahaina civic who somehow on last minute notice, bookedtheir flights and got there. and even we talk about some ofthe smaller schools, kohala, division 2 basketballtournament, we were playing

consolation game at 9:00 or11:00 a.m. and they had at least 50, 60 fans from kohala.small community on the big island. so i'm justconstantly amazed at how supportive our families andour communities are for our high school kids.>>mahealani: what about the leagues on the big island ofhawai'i? not only have to travel by air, if you're goingto go to a neighbor island, but there's also the drivingdistance. so are the leagues are now separate. right?on the big island.

>> yeah. actually, no matterwhat the form of transportation is, it'sexpensive. actually, biggest expense for most ofthese schools is bus. darryl is big island product, so heknows. playing sports at kona waena just to play a gameat hilo can cost almost $400 for the bus transportationwhich is almost like flying or taking a boat. they do this2, 3 times a week sometimes. so there have been, when we'vehad severe budget cuts, there's been times when theleagues have actually had to

make adjustments even onoahu. the oahu interscholastic associationhad to make adjustments to their baseball, softball andvolleyball schedules in order to cut down on those bustravels. because even going from kahuku to town, talkingcouple hundred dollars at least. same thing withwaianae and some of the more remote areas because theycharge by the distance. >>mahealani: darryl, let's goback to you. the prices for your airline fees. how doyou keep your tickets a little

bit lower than some of theother carriers? >> it's back to equipment.we fly single engine aircraft that for the shorter legs, area lot more efficient than flying bigger aircraft. jetor twin it's kind of back to that the lewis very longargues the question why it's cheaper to go to las vegas.jets operate a lot more efficiently at altitude.when you have a lot of up and down and lower altitude, jetsare going to consume more fuel. costs are hire.that's how it's been able to

work for us, because of theequipment we've chosen, single engine caravan,carries nine passengers. that's kind of been whatwhat's worked for us. >>mahealani: going to go backto sports travel because michael from kahului says, ifa sports team needs to travel, they should able to charter aplane. are there special deals that you can work outwith the airline industry when you have large groups ofpeople who are traveling? >> i guess that's possible.every airline i think has a

group desk, large groups.>>mahealani: then usually do offer anything over nine. soten or more, is typically five to 10% lower. but in yoursituation, with the last minute, travel, it's reallydifficult. it's difficult sometimes just to find thatmany seats, capacity sometimes is not there aswell. >> heidi, is there aparticular day that you can just book your flight and itmight be a little bit cheaper than on another day? youhear that, airlines industry

experts all the time.>> you know, you do. actually, i was just readingthe other day story came out that down to scientificfactor that it's exactly 54 days in advance of the daythat you want to travel is supposed to be the cheapestday to actually book and buy your flight. so write thatdown. >>mahealani: is that true,darryl? >> i'm writing it down for myown self. >>mahealani: is it true?>> typically, it is less

expensive typically to travelon a tuesday or wednesday. that is true. the fare.>>mahealani: do you agree, darryl?>> tuesday, wednesday, i would agree. most of yourtravelers going to travel, friday, saturday, monday.>>mahealani: law of economics. if you look atthe tariffs, you can decode a fare basis code. it willshow you, this is an x day or e day and so forth. sotypically, tuesday, wednesday, sometimesthursday travel is less

expensive. of course,buying in advance, staying over saturday night, all ofthose lower fares definitely have more restrictions. themore restrictions you have, typically, the lower thefare. so some of them, yeah, you have to book especiallyinternational, six months, sometimes in advance. soforth. >>mahealani: we're going tokeep notes on those. randy, in terms of just lowering thecost, what can the state do?. the state is putting a lot ofemphasis and resources into

improving the facilities.there's been a lot of discussion about supply anddemand. mentioned efficiency. i mentionedscaling earlier. it's a volume business to a largedegree, transportation. bigger the plane, economiesof scale. well, the neighbor island we're talking aboutneighbor island costs, shipping, are impacted by thelack of volume. it costs the same amount to sail a barge tothe neighbor island, whether you have 20 containers on itor 200. so the barge sailing

is the same. it doesn't takethat much longer to unload it. a lot of capital and costs inthe tugboat, take the barge over there. when you havelow volumes, it costs more. so what the state can do sincewe don't control the carriers and we're not the shippers andcarriers in the business, we're creating betterfacilities, more efficient facilities, so that the cargocan move through the facility better. kawaihae, we justfinished a $7.1 million-yard improvement. that's agrowing harbor. all of the

state harbors neighborislands we're expanding or buying land to expand.putting improvements in. so that the ports will operatemore efficiently. that op lowers the cost moving cargothrough the terminal or port. that should result in lesscost escalation in the future. costs are stillgoing to go up. labor costs, insurance. costs of fuel,but if you can make your terminals and your ports movemore facilities, operate more efficiently, you will containsome of that cost eggs

escalation. the state ismaking investmentses in its facilities.>>mahealani: does the state get involved in interislandcommerce in terms of mocking goods.>> not currently. >>mahealani: any plans to tothat. >> we're looking into it howwe can do that. something that unique with mokulele isthat we operate, because of the size of the aircraft andtype of aircraft, we operate, we operate outside of tsa.we're not required to go

through tsa. so all of ourstations with the exception of honolulu because of wherewe operate out of, there is no tsa. we're looking at waysto be able to help the smaller communities, molokai, hana,lanai, more isolated communities, to get, theywant to go to costco. buy goods and especially somebodyin hana. that's a 4 hour drive up and another 4 hourdrive home. lau can we help them move that costco goodsfrom our terminal into hana. we're looking at. exploringthose type of options. so

hopefully soon, we can getthat going for them. >>mahealani: you know,everyone is looking at hawaiian airlines right now.wondering what is going to happen.go airlines is now out of business and everybody islooking at their airlines ticket prices. they've gonedown a little bit. what do you think will happen maybeuntil the longer term if you can comment about hawaiianairlines? what do you think? >> my thoughts of commentingon hawaiian airlines, i kind

of want to stay away fromthat. but like i said, in the beginning, a lot of it, theprices and i've explained this to family members, thatbaby luaus, the prices you're paying is what the airlinesneed to sustain their business model. so like isaid, equipment they operate, especially maintenancecosts, it's a big cost especially when you're flyinga jet only 30 minutes. so i think the cost that they'recharging is justified. it's just like once again, peoplearen't used to seeing that.

>>mahealani: tonight, we'reasking how can interisland travel become moreaffordable. we invite to you join our conversation bycallings, e-mailing or tweeting your questions andcomments. you can call 973-1000 onoahu. and 1-800-283-4847 from the neighbor islands.heidi, this question is for you. john from princevillesays, why are fares jumped drastically when aloha wentout of business? >> that's a reallyinteresting question. the

whole situation with aloha,it's just so near and dear to my heart. i have really goodfriends that 37 year careers, flight attendant, i wastalking to darryl about her earlier. teaches with me nowat kcc. still so passionate. still miss aloha. and theday that aloha ceased operations, i knew my timewith united was limited. and i got furloughed during thatsame time period from united. and it really is because alohaairlines was doing all that they could for the communityas far as trying to keep the

prices low, but they weredrownedding in the cost of fuel. i mean, at thatmoment, the price of fuel, i think, went up to like $178 abarrel and they just put their hands up and said, okay,sorry. we're crying uncle and we're done. we can't dothis any more. and you know, that's the unnorth natsituation, the price of fuel -- unfortunatesituation, the price of fuel literally knockingbusinesses out of business. ata went out shortlythereafter and australian

carrier and it was directlyrelated to the cost of fuel. you know, only thing, i mean,the big d word, deregulation, comes to mind when we kind ofthink about these things and there's a lot of people thatdon't agree with deregulation. and thenothers that those people want to see more regulation of theairlines. and to me, it's not really the regulation ofthe airlines. but the government somehow steppingin and helping, whether it be through hedge funding withsetting the price of jet a

fuel to a certain amount. iknow oil is, it's a global market. it's not u.s.market. the interesting recent news is that 80% of ouroil is now coming from within the united states. it's noteven offshore. and so that's really what we need to do issomehow get a handle on that. >>mahealani: we saw whathappened to aloha. do you think the same could happen toanother small airline like mokulele?>> oh, i mean, yeah. the price of fuel shot up againthat high, it's crippling.

it's really crippling tobusinesses. >>mahealani: something likethat keep you up at night? >> sure. i mean, alwayswatching the costs in the airline industry. themargins are so thin. you're constantly looking at ways tobe more efficient. that's why, i keep going back to it.equipment that we've chosen to use is our future businessmodel. that's our model. something that's efficient.going to get you there in a safe and timely manner.that's why we've chosen the

caravan.>>mahealani: wes, what do you think can be done to maketravel more affordable? >> well, i'm not sure aboutfrom the business side of it, but from the legislative sideand the community side, you know, we have seen support.we just recently had a fundraiser couple months ago,on behalf of the downtown athletic club hawai'i, forstrictly for molokai and lanai. because you want totalk about travel costs. they are both schools that arethe only school on their

respective island. theyhave no choice. if they want to play somebody else, youknow, that somebody has to come to lanai or they have togo to maui. so they are constantly traveling and theyuse all forms of transportation. mostlyferry. like randy mentioned. kaunakakai tomaui ferry. they're both part of the mauiinterscholastic league. they play baldwin, lanai,lahainaluna, they play the same amount of games as theother schools but they have to

travel every time.>>mahealani: is it simply having a fundraiser.>> part of that fundraiser, they raised over $100,000which was fantastic. but it barely covers the athleticdirector at molokai, hoku, she was already facing a$32,000 deficit just for travel for their remainder ofthe year, from january on. just to get through the year.and lanai, was covered just for the regular season, but ifany of their teams or athletes qualified for statetournament, then they're at

zero. so this was a greatfundraiser to get them through the year andhopefully, next. but also, just to raise awareness at thelegislative level and community level that theseschools especially need support because theirathletes deserve the same kind of opportunities thatthe athletes have on oahu and maui and the big island,kauai, just to compete. and what they have to go throughjust to get through their schedule is amazing and atestament to these those

kids.>>mahealani: i would imagine that the kids in hana have thesame issue in a kids on kauai. there's only with what, threehigh schools there? >> there's three.>>mahealani: can only play against each other.>> fourth school, island school, that has a bunch ofsports, but yeah, same thing. their regular season forfootball, there is only those three big schools and theyplay each other three times. four times.and then that's the way in

basketball and baseball. ifthey want outside competition, either in thepreseason or a lot of times, their champion advances tothe state tournament, they're traveling. so again,they're trying to fund raise. with a small population base.and. >> what a unique situation wehave here. we're just really spread out and there is noother way to move about except with willing air fares andit's just listening to all of the challenges that our kidsare facing, that it's not even

something that they cancontrol. but we really have to find some way to make thatmore affordable. >>mahealani: fred in kahaluusays. since oil is the transportation fuel forshipping, how will we get between the islands in thefuture. 10, 20 years from now, where do you see thingsgoing. >> for myself, i use the boatwhen the boat was operating from barbers point to alohatower. living in nanakuli, and working in town, iabsolutely loved that. it

was just the most wonderfulthing. it's just unfortunate that that didn'twork out. and of course, there's the rail coming upthat it's well in the works. it's just unfortunate that ifwe're going to have the rail, it should have been 30 yearsago. i mean, it's going to be years before that's up andrunning. and i'm not even sure what the cost is going tobe. if that's even going to be something that'saffordable for those of us that do that commute from thewest side all the way into

town. but for the future, asfar as travel between the islands, we just have tosomehow get some more businesses to come in. imean, mokulele is looking at expanding, adding routes,adding more flights daily. we need to see more of that.in order to have that healthy competition. right now,hawaiian airlines is kind of the airlines. i mean, we dohave island air, we have mokulele. but having i thinkmore diverse options, and even the ferry, i think thatwould be a really good thing

for us. and i know that therewas a lot of contention and that culturally, there wassome issues with the ferry coming in and the footprintthat it may or may not be leaving. so of course, theenvironmental impact is important. but you know, thebottom line is our lifestyle here is unique. and sounlike most places on the planet. we live in the mostisolated place on earth. and we're not in one isolatedplace. we are spread out. our families are spreadacross too and we can't lose

that.>>mahealani: we've heard on the panel tonight, many of yousaid that we have just limited options here. so darryl, doyou see another airline coming in to hawai'i? do wehave enough room for another airline?>> well, history has shown that we haven't. you look ataloha going out of business, you look at go leaving themarket, history has shown that there isn't enough roomfor another airline. and i hate to always take it back toit, but once again, it's

changing the culture of thetraveling public in hawaii. talk about the superferry.how they had this big ship but not the ridership. and it'svery expensive to operate a big aircraft and not fill upyour seats. >> he's a pilot. if he can doit, you know. dennis from lihue wants to know aboutbaggage fees. people always complain about them.darryl, is baggage fees, we just need to accept it? arethey here to stay? >> i think so. it hasn't goneaway. it's just another way

to try to -- it's really justanother revenue source for the airlines to be able tokeep it sustainable and be able to stay in business andcharge the fair fares that you charge.because without with baggage fee, it forces people toreally need to take that, do i really need four pairs ofclothes if i'm only going one night? and those that aretaking it, or those that do not have the extra baggage,they shouldn't be penalized for it. that's extra weight.extra fuel you're burning

because of the aircraft isheavier. i don't see baggage fees going away.>>mahealani: wes you talked about community supporthelping these teams whether they be football or golf.does anyone ever come in and just underwrite the cost ofstudent travel? >> that would be nice. yeah,i don't want to make like we haven't had any supportbecause we have. we've had sponsorships. travelagencies. do a great job. we direct them if we can't payfor the travel, we can at

least direct themrepresentatives from the airlines or agencieses.this everyone done a great job trying to give discountedrates or group rates. and not just with air travel.but even hotel and ground transportation. so i don'twant to make it sound like there's no support from theindustry. there has been a lot of support. they can'tgive it away for free. because there is costinvolved. you move 100 people, that costs a lot ofmoney for the airlines. i

think it's a collaborativeeffort from the community. which includes the businessesin and out of the industry. to help.>>mahealani: randy, let's talk about pier 35. someonehasn't gone there for a long time, they're prettysurprised to see that you've got tom restaurants there.there's some night life. pier 38 rather. does thatkind of commerce contribute to the overall health of theharbor? >> yes. those are harborstenants. they're on long

term leases and paying rent toharbors. so that helps us with our revenue stream.enable us to go be financially stable enough to go get morebonding capacity. to invest in, get bonds and invest inthe harbor facilities because harbors is a special fund.we do not get money from the general fund. so we survivebasically on a user fees. tariff rates, cargo isessentially a rate as it comes through the harbor and we thenbuild a model around making ourselves financiallystable. enough to go borrow

through the bond market of theto finance improvements. so when you have facility likethe fishing village, domestic fishing village at pier 38,very successful restaurants, very popular.there's more to come in that area is going to be morebuildings coming up in that area.very successful. they're paying good rents toharbors division. that helps us.>>mahealani: are there plans to create more fishingvillage like pier 38?

>> no. we're limited withour cargo area. cargo is our primary mission. cargo, wehave to keep our lands, harbor lands available for cargomovements because it's limited resource.basically, you're not going to see a lot of the thosethings happening in the future. you might see thosepopping up in other areas around harbor. i don't thinkyou'll see prime harbor land to that kind of use. i wouldlike to harken back to earlier comments about fuel.dependency on oil, fuel,

especially in the marinecargo industry. i see that changing right now, a lot oftalk about lng. they're powering some vessels on thewest coast with that. much cheaper fuel. that could bethe wave of the future. i know that locally, there'salso a pilot project on hydro again fuel cells forcontainer. instead of burning gasoline to keep therefrigerated container unit, they're using hydrogen.those things take time. probably decades to see a bigchange.

>>mahealani: darryl, adamfrom lanai, lanikai rather, thinks if mokulele airlinesflew to princeville, hana and lahaina, they could charge abit more so that you don't have to take a rental car.any plans on expanding to those sorts of areas?>> we currently serve hana. through kahaluu. we havedaily two flights daily in and out of hana. princeville,it's a little bit of a challenge for what theaircraft we fly. because we're under faa restrictionswith the type of aircraft we

operate. single engineaircraft. we've got to maintain distance toshoreline at all times. we have to climb up to16,000 feet to get there. just won't work forprinceville. can't say we haven't. in the future,maybe we can get there. >>mahealani: will there everbe a need to target a really small airports?>> always a need. kalaeloa, that's my neck of the woods.i'm excited about that. >>mahealani: what'shappening over there?

>> we're actually workingwith the state right now. met with the neighborhoodboard. transportation board andneighborhood board to get their support in startingoperation. support has been overwhelming. happy andhonored to be try able to try to provide service back outthere for the community. right now, we're working withthe airports division. d.o.t. to get space out there.so we can begin the operation. so the ball is rolling. justa matter of time when we get

the space in order. they'vebeen working on reimplementing that wholething from the base operation that it was. to back to thepublic. they've been doing some renovations and there'sa lot of flights in and out of there now. i mean, they'restill running the military coast guard, but there's a lotof cessnas that are flying in and out. training school.>> randy pat from kula says since oil is the determiningfactor here and you often talk about efficiency, are thereany technologies in our

harbors to make things moreefficient? we hear about solar panels and diesel.>> harbor handling equipment is getting more efficient anbetter and faster all the time. in the old days, it wasa big deal. everything was handled by hand, then you ahad 2-ton forklift and 5-ton forklift was a big deal in thefifties. now you have big machines and the containersare getting bigger. crane, vessel gear, everything hasto be more efficient. operators of businessesunderstand that they have to

maintain efficiency and keepinnovating or they'll go out of business.there's always innovation no business, whether it bedifferent kinds of fuel, equipment, financingmethods, better insurance programs. i mean, you'realways looking for an edge because you've got to keepyour head above water when you run a business.>>mahealani: wes, how tough is it for those schooladministrators or coaches to let's say, make their teamstraveling more efficient,

like, i don't think thisperson needs to go. or this person, doesn't make the cut.that was one of the issues we mentioned molokai and lanaibefore. we talk about the kind of deficits theirathletic directors have faced, unfortunately, thatwas one of the things they had to resort to was determiningtravel squads. college teams do that a lot. for roadtrip. they don't take the whole squad. they take maybe2/3 of the squad. but that's really rough. on a highschool kid who practices

every day with the teammates.and comes to the weekend and time to play a game andthey're left behind. so those are hart wrenchingdecisions for that athletic directors to make. butununfortunately for schools like molokai and lanai, it hascome down to that. we hate to see that happen to otherschools as well. especially for event look like a statetournament, championship, you work all season for andget to that point, you want even the last kid on the benchlike i said, they practiced

just as hard as everybodyelse, you want them to enjoy that experience too.>>mahealani: earlier, talked about football. obviously,you have dozens of players. dozens of people involved ina football team and obviously, that's moreexpensive but that's more high visibility whereas ifyou have a small team, like a golf team, it might not be aswell known. so was it actually more difficultperhaps for some of the smaller teams to travel?because of that?

>> yes. because football,because it's so big and high profile. it also brings inthe most revenue too. so there is big costs involved.but they do, that is the biggest revenue sports. sosome of the other sports that are not high profile, theydon't charge admission, for their games, they might be, itmight be harder for them to raise the money. so there'schallenges for all the squads, big and small.>>mahealani: you've been hearing from your coach it'sand athletic teams that the

cost is so high. have youever had to make difficult decisions like woo we'regoing to have to change the schedule because of all ofthis? >> yes. that's happened hereon oahu with the oia and even on the big island. i thinkwhen darryl was in high school, you guys wouldregularly play the team from the hilo side, right? but afew years ago, because of the bus costs were justastronomical, and getting to be a big burden, paired withthe budget cuts from the state

allocations, they divided theinto east and west. so in the regular season, island intothe east and west. regular season, hilo side schoolsplay each other. kona sides play each other. when itcame time for the playoffs, they would meet each other.that is some of the adjustments these leagueshave had to make. >>mahealani: has the sportbeen eliminated all together because of the cost?>> no. you we came very close in 2009, state budgetsituation was so bad, that

they were consideringeliminating all jv sports from all the public schools.and there was a hearing, public hearings for the boardof education and i think that's when we saw thecommunity really come out and make their voice known thatthat was unacceptable. because in a lot of way it's,jv sports are just as important if not more so thanthe varsity sports because those are the kids 13, 14years old, a lot of them at risk kids. they can chooseone path or another. sports

is what keeps them in line.so the community really came out. there was a big publiccampaign called save our sports, which by the way, isstill ongoing, and thanks to the former hsa director,executive director, keith amemiya, spearheading thatcampaign, they raised $1.6 million over the next 8months. that got distributed to the schools tomake up for some of these drastic cuts and but i thinkagain, it was the community making their voice known thatsports even jv sports are very

important to our community.>>mahealani: randy, wesley from kahala talks about theharbors. if the possibility of them being privately run.is that a far off question. >> that's way far out there.these are public facilities. public investments were madein them. we are a unique situation in many areas of thecountry. the ports are more autonomous and there are portauthorities. but generally speaking, public lands thathave been put into an authority. you're talkingabout some significant assets

and resources that even wouldnot become private, but there has to be more privatization.private parties and private companies operate on ourpublic facilities. we're a public facility in terms ofbuilding a harbor, but private companies operatejust like in the airports. it's a public airport,facility, but mokulele is a private company. i can't seein hawai'i that being controlled by private sectorbecause i think it's too much of a valuable resource to thecommunity and to the state.

we're so dependent upon theharbors. it has to stay within the governmentcontrol. >>mahealani: darryl,earlier, we talked about the future a little bit. wheredo you see the airline industry let's say, 10, 20, 30years from now? >> i think we're going to seea lot of changes. a lot more, you see the bigger airplanes,less fuel efficient airplanes start to be phased out andmore efficient aircraft being brought in. because a lot oflike we've been discussing

tonight, fuel costs, oilcosts, how do you stay ahead of that? you've got to staywith technology. continue to grow with technology. andthat's what you're seeing manufacturers do. findingways to improve upon the aerodynamicses of theairplane, efficiencies of the engine, fuel burn, all ofthose things. so i think as we move forward, we're justgoing to see continued improvements inmanufacturing from places like boeing airbus, cessna.>>mahealani: you've seen it

from the pilot seat?>> >> why he.>>mahealani: these improvements?>> technology, because technology is a huge thing inthe marine transportation industry as well. you'reseeing a lot more computers systems being applied to thetracking of cargo, and essentially, it's replacingmanpower. you're putting technology/computer systemstechnology into place. in the old days, it was labor.>>mahealani: we are now into

the future. and you know,there's certainly going to be a lot of changes. i wanted tothank all of you for being here tonight. thank you somuch. next time on insights, the election season willbegin in ernest in just a few weeks. but candidates havealready started campaigning for the august primaryelection. which races are close and what issues mighthelp decide them? how will hawai'i voters choose whothey want to represent them in washington, d.c., at thestate capitol, and across our

neighbor islands. on thenext insights on pbs hawai'i, what are the races to watch inthe up coming election. that's next time on insightson pbs hawai'i. i'm mahealani richardson.a hui ho.