Island-Hopping on a 9-Seater in Hawaii on Mokulele Airlines
Mokulele Airlines
When we’ve traveled to Hawaii in the past, we flew with Hawaiian Airlines when we island-hopped. On our last trip, since we were only going from Maui to Molokai, we decided to go with Mokulele Airlines.
First thing we didn’t realize, Mokulele Airlines was not in the regular terminal with the rest of the airlines at the Kahului Airport (OGG) in Maui. It had it’s own little terminal past the rental car pick-up (hind-sight we also could have parked MUCH closer to our terminal for the same price).
We also did not have to have our bags screened. Since we were only going for one night, none of us had checked bags. We each had one carry-on bag. The cost for a checked bag isn’t unreasonable, it’s $15 for your first bag and $17 for your second bag.
When we arrived at the terminal we had to get on a scale with all our carry-on items to find out our weight before the flight. This determined our seat assignment for weight and balance purposes. We did not receive boarding passes; from what I read, Honolulu is the only airport they issue boarding passes to people. At OGG they checked everyone’s ID against their printed list of passengers for the flight.
There are only 9 seats on the plane, so each seat is a window and an aisle seat. =) There are four rows of 2 seats (one on each side) and one wider seat in the back of the plane. There are also no flight attendants, just a pilot and co-pilot, who opened the door to the cock-pit to give us our pre-flight briefing.
On our flight out there was only the four of us plus one other passenger. Since we were all there and checked in early, our flight was able to leave 30 minutes early!
Being in the small plane was amazing, it was almost like getting our own helicopter tour with the views we saw from our windows. I will say this, if you are prone to motion sickness, an earlier flight tends to be better because it’s usually less windy then. We only had turbulence a couple of minutes before landing on this flight. The flight from Maui to Molokai was less than 20 minutes. Our return flight was an afternoon flight. It took about 25 minutes and we experienced turbulence during take-off and landing.
You do have to climb a few steps into and out of the plane. They cannot assist you so you need to be able to do it yourself or someone in you party needs to be able to assist you.
All-in-all we had a very positive experience flying on Mokulele Airlines; I would definitely fly them again and recommend them for most people.
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My wife and I just flew Mokulele from JHM to HNL on our way back from Maui to the mainland and had a similarly awesome experience. Our flight options were: OGG-HNL for ~$90/person on a Hawaiian B717 or $80/person for the tiny Mokulele cessna. The choice was a no brainer 🙂
We sat in row 1 and had awesome views of the islands, the cockpit, and the pilots. Here are a few shots from the flight:
http://instagram.com/p/qKq-oShZEr/
http://instagram.com/p/qKwP9AhZOO/
My wife and I flew Mokulele. The small Cessna was quite a harrowing experience for us. We prefer the heavier 717 or 737.
This reminds me of when I flew Tropic Air in Belize on a similarly configured C208. The views were stunning, you were able to sit in the copilot seat, and it was super cheap! I noticed you said that on your particular aircraft there were 4 rows of one seat; on my Tropic Air flight two of those one seat rows were configured 2-1 with the 2 side being a sort of bench.