Honolulu Weekly

For Randall Cummings, the numbers on the Honolulu Star-Bulletin survey were bleak. A pilot for a local carrier, he watched as votes supporting go! airlines remained high. ‘We were losing tremendously,’ he says of the poll, which asked readers their opinion of go! airlines, a subsidiary of Arizona-based Mesa Air Group.

Cummings and his fellow members of H.E.R.O., a group opposed to Mesa’s intrusion into the Islands, believe that the company is attempting to price either Aloha or Hawaiian Airlines out of business by offering super-cheap fares. Aloha has filed a suit against Mesa. (Cummings works for one of Mesa’s competitors, but did not want the company’s name revealed because as a member of H.E.R.O., he does not speak on behalf of his employer.)

The question the online poll posed was this: Will the entrance of Mesa Air Group’s go! airline in the Hawai’i market be good in the long run?’ And for a time it appeared as if the majority of those responding to the poll supported the new airline. When the survey came to an end during the last week of September, Cummings says it was 2-1 in favor of go!

On Oct. 1 Mesa issued a press release announcing the good news. The company apparently thought the occasion was important enough to warrant a gift to the public: the extension of their $19 HERO fare. (HERO? More on that shortly.)

But then something happened. First, Cummings and the folks at H.E.R.O. received emails from Mesa employees including one that Cumming says was apparently written by company CEO Jonathan Ornstein. (H.E.R.O. stands for ‘Hawai’i’s Airline Employees Repelling Ornstein.’) The intention of these emails? To alert Mesa staff to the online survey. Shortly thereafter, someone at H.E.R.O. contacted the Star-Bulletin.

‘We got a hold of an internal memo asking employees to respond to the poll,’ says Star-Bulletin editor Frank Bridgewater. ‘It is not unusual for one side to get out the vote.’

A further examination of the survey revealed that a substantial number of votes came from Mesa. Those were removed, and the poll was recalculated. The Arizona-based airline was now on the losing end. Before the end of the day on Oct. 1, the press release announcing the victory was recalled.

The folks at Mesa don’t deny efforts were made to tip the scales in their favor. ‘Of course we publicized it to our employees,’ says Paul Skellon, vice president of community affairs for Mesa Air Group. However, he denies there was an attempt to corrupt the poll.

As for allegations that Mesa called the ultra-low rate their $19 HERO fare in order to mock the group of Hawai’i airline employees at H.E.R.O., Skellon says, ‘They can speculate whatever they like. I don’t want to comment on that.’

He then added that the people who heard what the rate was called understood exactly what was meant by the terminology.