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Hawaiian airlines confident despite rising fuel costs, slower economy: investor hershfield helping carrier coar.

Article Excerpt
Larry Hershfield will be the first to admit that the airline industry has not been consistently profitable. Besides the troubles airlines have had regaining sales since Sept. 1l, 200l, skyrocketing fuel prices have put a huge dent in profits.

But Hershfield is still confident in his decision to buy bankrupt Hawaiian Airlines three years ago.

In 2005, his Carlsbad-based equity firm Ranch Capital LCC and its financial partners paid $173 million to acquire the commercial carrier, which it then led out of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filling.

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"We thought Hawaii was a strong market all along," said Hershfield, 51, now the carrier's chairman. "There were a lot of other things that attracted our interest--the company had a history of great products and its services had performed quite well. We thought we could invest on a basis that made economic sense and have a great company with a great future."

When purchasing the struggling airline, Hersfield also weighed the facts that the carrier, a wholly-owned subsidiary of publicly traded Hawaiian Holdings, us the largest in the islands, 17th largest in the United States. The carrier has the second-largest number (after United Airlines) of routes between the U.S. mainland and Hawaii....

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