Flower power in the air: the story of Aloha Airlines
[ originally published in the ‘Holiday’ edition of The Modernist magazine, July 2018 ]
Nowadays our air travel experiences are likely informed by overcrowding, delays and procedures actively designed to stir feelings somewhere between helplessness, enmity and exasperation.
But 70 years ago it was very different.
Mid-20th century air travel was pitched as modern, stylish and inclusive.
& sometimes it really was.
The 1950s and 60s were the golden age of the independent airline. Operators on every scale could source cheap wartime DC3s, Dakotas and even flying boats straight from the US Air Force, repaint them and put them straight into service, often flown by their original pilots.
As corporate jet fleets came to dominate the longer international routes, smaller independent carriers sprang up to provide short distance and island hopping services across the world. These cheap and accessible connections revolutionised travel for locals as well as tourists, especially across the coastal regions of the Pacific Ocean.
Of all the small scale commercial airlines that launched at this time the most interesting (aesthetically, at the very least) was Hawaii’s Aloha Airlines.
Founded by publisher Ruddy Tongg and initially known as Trans-Pacific Airlines, Aloha was formed in response to racial prejudice.
In late 1940s Hawaii, Tongg and his friends had felt the sting of discrimination. They had been bumped off flights on the only inter-island carrier, Hawaiian Airlines, which reportedly excluded Asian pilots, flight attendants and passengers in favour of Caucasians.
The solution from Tongg and his business partners was to create their own airline.
Says Pacific aviation historian Peter Forman.
“When Aloha first came in, they were responding to the prejudices of the time,” Forman said. “They created an airline that a person of any ethnicity could fly on and feel equally welcome. There are many old timers who supported Aloha over the years for this very reason.”
The airline launched with three war-surplus DC-3s and soon become a favourite of passengers by actively embracing and celebrating Hawaiian culture. For in-flight entertainment, attendants danced the hula and played the ‘ukulele. The un-pressurised DC-3s featured holes in the fuselage so that passengers could takes photos whilst travelling from island to island.
However by 1958 the airline was in financial trouble so early investor Hung Wo Ching stepped in take control of the airline and re-name it Aloha Airlines, heralding an era of upgraded planes, new routes and an unrivaled tropical aesthetic.
The 1960s were the golden age of Aloha Airlines graphic design with every aspect of the carrier embracing the colours, iconography and language of Hawaiian culture that led the local population to embrace and identify Aloha as their own airline.
Even through the filter of our over exposure to the‘holiday Hawaii’ cliché, the application of the Aloha Airlines style guide across everything from boarding passes to advertising to the planes themselves was a perfectly realised floral aesthetic.
In the late 60s this flower-driven design ethos led to conflict between Aloha and Boeing over their newly delivered 737–200s — named ‘Funbirds’ by Aloha and branded accordingly.
Boeing objected to their jets being emblazoned with what they considered visuals more associated with pot-smoking hippies from San Francisco than a reputable Pacific airline. Unperturbed, Aloha Airlines design ethos continued to thrive into the 1970s.
The 70s and early 80s saw the Aloha brand develop with employees from across the airline featured in posters and timetables alongside the familiar orange flowers.
Aloha Flight 243 in April 1988 brought global attention to the airline when, due to explosive decompression, a large piece of fuselage ripped off mid-air causing the fatality of a flight attendant and a dramatic landing in which the remaining crew and passengers survived with only minor injuries. A heavily dramatised account of the incident was the basis for the made-for-TV 1990 film ‘Miracle Landing’ (worth avoiding, if at least for the sad lack of Aloha Airlines branding)
In the 1990s Aloha struggled with competition from the larger corporate airlines and got mired in mergers and acquisitions from rivals. Hung Wo Ching passed in 2002 (funeral attendees were advised to dress in ‘Aloha attire’) and the airline eventually ceased operations in 2008.
Aloha Airlines left a legacy of local entrepreneurship, inclusion, Pacific cultural pride and a positive modern aesthetic unrivaled by any contemporary airline.
A hui hou Aloha!
This article originally appeared in the ‘Holiday’ issue of The Modernist magazine — click https://www.the-modernist.org/shop/the-modernist-magazine-issue-28 for more info