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Aloha Cargo Shutdown Leaves Companies Scrambling

Loves Bakery Using 3 Companies To Send Product To Neighbor Islands

POSTED: 9:28 am HST April 29, 2008
UPDATED: 10:52 am HST April 29, 2008

Many companies spent Monday night scrambling to find alternatives to sending their products to the neighbor islands after Aloha Airlines abruptly shut down operations.

The president of Loves Bakery said he feels misled by Aloha Airlines. Company workers scrambled on Monday night to find alternative ways to fly 36,000 pounds of bread products to the neighbor islands each day.

Pallets of Loves bread sat on the factory's platform ready to be flown to the neighbor islands.

The company's president got word of Aloha's cargo shutdown late in the afternoon.

"We were totally caught off guard," Loves Bakery President Mike Walters said.

Walters said e-mails from Aloha's management in the past week never hinted the end was coming.

"'Be assured that Aloha will take the necessary legal actions required to prevent any disruption to its cargo flow and service it provides to Loves Bakery,'" Walters read from an e-mail.

Loves Bakery trucks filled with bread products arrived at Aloha cargo only to find there was no service to the neighbor islands.

"All the product that we produce for the neighbor islands was sitting at Aloha, ready to be transported to the different facilities tonight and tomorrow," Walters said.

That posed some grave concerns since 38 percent of the company's business comes from the neighbor islands.

"This is as extreme as I've faced," Walters said. "I don't want to say it's devastating, but it's going to be taxing."

Walters has been working on alternative modes of distribution for the last six or seven months, not because of Aloha, but because of the skyrocketing cost of gasoline.

"Over the course of the last 12 months, it's cost prohibitive to use that form of transportation anymore," Walters said.

Loves started using the Hawaii Superferry Sunday to transport products to Maui. So they do not expect disruptions in deliveries there.

A freight forwarding company called Sure Fire is flying products into Kauai, Hilo and Kona on Tuesday morning.

Loves is securing Young Brothers to deliver bread to those islands after that.

Loves officials believe that with Sure Fire, the Superferry and Young Brothers they can stave off any major disruption in service to the neighbor islands.

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