Hawaii Fare Watch

Hawaii Superferry reports that it’s ridership has been steadily increasing during May. The company estimates that, based on current bookings, it will surpass 21,000 passengers and 5,800 vehicles during the month. It carried more than 5,500 passengers and 1500 vehicles on the Memorial weekend alone.Superferry has also announced that it will extend promotional pricing into September, $49 per passenger and $65 per vehicle. It will also wave the fuel surcharge for the promotional period.

Let’s do a little reality check here. Looking at the Memorial weekend figures above and doing a little math we can see that Superferry is still not paying it’s bills. During this period the average passenger load was 392 per trip and the average vehicle load was 107 per trip. (The vessel made 14 trips) That generated about $21,000 in revenue per trip at $39 per passenger and $55 per vehicle. Superferry uses 6,000+ gallons of fuel per trip. At around $3.50 per gallon for marine diesel each trip costs about $21,000 for fuel alone. As you can see Superferry is just approaching the point to where it will cover just it’s fuel costs.

Why is this important? Hawaii depends on it’s interisland travel network. For passengers this network is made up almost exclusively of air carriers. Aloha Airlines is now gone. Go! Airlines parent Mesa is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Island Air has put on hold any thoughts of expansion until the current market sorts itself out. Should Go! shutdown, that would leave Hawaiian as the only large interisland air carrier. Hawaiian has just raised it’s minimum interisland fare to $64. You see where we’re going here, with little or no competition interisland air fares are going to go substantially higher.

Hawaii Superferry could provide significant passenger competition for the airlines. (not to mention it’s cargo carrying ability) At full capacity it can haul 18,000 passengers a week on the Oahu Maui run, equaling over 160 flights of Hawaiian’s Boeing 717’s. That’s the kind of competition the airlines would have to take seriously as they set their fares.

Now the reality is with the price of oil at $130 per barrel interisland fares are going to go up, on the airlines and the Superferry. But, if the Superferry is not around they’re going to go even higher.

So, we suggest that if you want to keep some competition in the market and keep interisland travel more affordable, ride the Superferry.

Photo Credit: Hawaii Superferry