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ISLAND HISTORY: A personal look back at Aloha Airlines - The Garden Island.My first Aloha Airlines flight occurred in May 1968, while I was on Oahu taking a 20-day paid leave from the Marine Corps, and sharing a rented studio apartment in a then-tranquil Waikiki with fellow Marine, Cpl.Greg Lewis, prior to our being shipped off to Vietnam.One day in the apartment, my fiancée, Ginger Beralas of Kauai, who was residing in Kalihi Valley at the time, said to me, “Ski, I like take you to my island,” an island I’d not yet visited.Soon after, Ginger and I boarded an Aloha Airlines BAC 1-11 passenger jet at Honolulu Airport bound for the usually uncrowded Lihue Airport of the time with its small terminal, and before its massive expansion during the 1980s, and Ginger became my personal Kauai tour guide.Aloha Airlines began operations in Honolulu as Trans-Pacific Airlines in 1946 in competition with Hawaiian Airlines.Publisher Ruddy F.Tongg was its president and Cmdr.Olsen served as vice president and manager.Every pilot and most members of the ground crews and office personnel at Trans-Pacific Airlines were military veterans, and most of them were local men.In fact, hiring discharged servicemen was part of the company’s policy of helping veterans upon their return to civilian life.Originally based at John Rodgers Field at Barbers Point, Oahu, Trans-Pacific Airlines at first utilized two-engine Douglas C-47 (DC-3) on flights within the Hawaiian Islands, and four-engine Douglas C-54s were used for trans-Pacific flights.Trans-Pacific Airlines adopted the name TPA-The Aloha Airline in 1950.And, when real estate developer Hung Wo Ching became CEO of the airline in 1958, he changed its name to Aloha Airlines.During the 1960s, Aloha Airlines switched over its aircraft fleet entirely to jets.Aloha Airlines eventually grew to provide passenger service to American Samoa, Canada, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Midway Atoll, and the Mainland United States.But, by the early 2000s, rising costs and economic stagnation put Aloha Airlines in a financial bind.On March 30, 2008, Aloha Airlines announced the suspension of all scheduled passenger flights, and its final day of operation occurred the next day.