Mokulele Airlines moves from LAX to Hollywood Burbank Airport, will begin service in October
A new carrier at Hollywood Burbank Airport will soon be offering daily flights to the Central Coast, airfield officials announced this week.
On Oct. 3, Hawaii-based carrier Mokulele Airlines will begin its operations at Hollywood Burbank, offering two daily flights to Santa Maria Public Airport Monday through Friday as well as one weekend flight, said Madeleine Zavala, manager of business and property for the local airfield, during a meeting of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority on Monday.
Mokulele launched in 1994 as an inter-island airline service in Hawaii. In 2016, it expanded its service to California, offering flights to Imperial County and Santa Maria out of Los Angeles International Airport.
As of next month, the airline will discontinue its LAX-to-Santa Maria service and move its operations to Terminal B at Hollywood Burbank. Mokulele will use its nine-seat Cessna Grand Caravan airplanes to make trips to the Central Coast. Each of Mokulele’s flights will have two pilots, Zavala said.
Rob McKinney, president of Mokulele, said the cost of operating out of LAX was becoming prohibitive and that having the airline’s own gate at an airport that large was not possible.
“Whereas in Burbank, we can afford our own gate, and we can control everything,” McKinney said. “We can provide a higher level of service.”
Also, the upcoming runway closures at LAX would have had a negative effect on Mokulele’s ability to get its planes up in the air on time, McKinney said.
The airline chose Hollywood Burbank over other airports in the region because of its partnership with Alaska Airlines and because many of its passengers tend to use Southwest Airlines for their connecting flights, McKinney said.
“As an airline, Mokulele runs … 94% on time, which I’m very prideful of,” he said. “LAX kind of brought that down, so Burbank is going to help us bring that back up to that same level of service that we have systemwide.”
anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com
Twitter: @acocarpio
