Word broke yesterday that United Arilines had purchased a minority stake of Aloha Airlines, one of two major home-grown carriers. Aloha and Hawaiian dominate the interisland air travel market, although upstart entrant (and Mesa Airlines subsidiary) go! has forced nasty price wars and pushed ticket prices on these routes to historic lows in the $40 round trip range.

Aloha also flies a lot of non-stops to second-tier West Coast airports and Phoenix on smaller jets. The buy could be a shrewd one for United, which has in the past sought to own a piece of the Hawaii interisland market but been shut down by governmental bodies. For travelers, this doesn't seem to mean any real change in prices in the near term, although it could be a bad sign for go!, which has staked its future on a Southwest, no-frills, rock-bottom prices attack of the Hawaii interisland market. Just to give you an idea, before go! entered, round trip interisland tickets were running nearly $200 or roughly five times what they can be had for now. Whatever the case, it seems highly likely that eventually United will simply snarf up the rest of Aloha, which has been in bankruptcy and faces difficult prospects due to its heavier reliance on the interisland market than its other chief competitor Hawaiian Air.

—Alex, 05/04/07