Hawaii Attorney Lawyer

Mark Dunkerley appreciates the problems that must have confronted and confounded his predecessors over Hawaiian Airlines’ 75 years of existence.

Starting in 1929, when the challenge was getting people to pay to fly over an ocean in new and relatively untested aircraft. (Related story: Carrier marks 75th anniversary; Union plans protest)

Knowing what Dunkerley knows as Hawaiian’s president, it’s hard to pinpoint any time when running an airline in Hawaii was easy.

Certainly not today.

Hawaiian, the Islands’ largest airline, will celebrate its diamond anniversary on Thursday with birthday cakes, Hawaiian blessings and 10,000 dendrobium orchid lei to be handed out to passengers. It will be as much a remembrance of Hawaiian’s rich legacy in the Islands as a celebration of the company’s survival following one of its most troubling periods. (Timeline: Key events since airline’s first flights in 1929)

Hawaiian is expected to emerge from federal bankruptcy protection under new ownership early next year and begin a new era amid increased competition for Hawaii’s hot tourism market and increased fuel costs.

That’s makes it seem like a long time since passengers on the airline’s earliest flights to Kailua, Kona on the Big Island landed in the bay with an outrigger canoe shuttling passengers ashore. Later, a landing field was constructed at Hilo.

“Collectively, the industry seems to have lost its senses,” Dunkerley said in Hawaiian’s Koapaka Street headquarters. “This is a time in our industry when we’re talking about the sky falling in. Fuel costs are up 50% but there has been no discernible chill on productivity (increase) on fares. … In many ways, the current situation is as uncertain as the post-Sept. 11 period. So this anniversary is a great testament in an industry that is as turbulent as ours.”

The immediate future follows three years that Dunkerley characterized as “terrible” for Hawaiian.

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks sent airlines into financial uncertainty in 2001, followed by the March 2003 invasion of Iraq that saw airline bookings to Hawaii plummet. That same month, Hawaiian’s board of directors filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time in its existence.

Dunkerley had been on the job as Hawaiian’s president for just three months.

The company quickly raised fares on its money-losing interisland business, angering passengers who could no longer afford to attend family weddings and funerals like the old days.

Hawaiian also eliminated its popular ticket coupons, instituted cost-efficient e-ticketing machines that at first confused passengers and faced the wrath of customers who had to stand in long security lines after Sept. 11.

But plenty of good things happened, too.

While under bankruptcy protection, Hawaiian has led America’s airlines in on-time service, generated 17 straight months of profits — until September — and along the way transformed the collective morale of its 3,300 employees.

Looking back, Dunkerley wonders whether Hawaiian needed to file bankruptcy to turn itself around.

“Bankruptcy is never a good thing,” Dunkerley said. “Bankruptcy has a legion of costs and inefficiencies associated with it. It is not a good place to be. All companies and all managers should spend every waking hour avoiding filing for bankruptcy. There is nothing to be enthusiastic or welcoming about being in bankruptcy.”

Over the last 20 months of bankruptcy protection, employees have often praised Dunkerley for his management skills.

His relationship with Hawaiian’s employees clearly pleases Dunkerley.

“They’re popular with me, too,” Dunkerley said. “I think they’re rather terrific.”

Long-time employees such as Maydell Morgan have gotten accustomed to uncertainty at Hawaiian.