Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer of Hawaiian Airlines, Inc, Hawaiian Holdings
Search every verified Avi Mannis interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote β each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Avi Mannis, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Hawaiian Airlines, discussed the airline's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in two appearances on the program "Island Focus." In a 2020 interview, Mannis stated that the airline's focus was on reopening safely using the best available science, maintaining cash reserves, and keeping employees employed through federal aid. He noted that the airline had partnered with the Department of Education on school preparations and emphasized that reopening the visitor industry required collaboration across the community, not just the airline industry. In a 2023 interview, Mannis reflected on lessons learned during the pandemic, including the importance of taking care of employees and remaining engaged with community stakeholders. He described how Hawaiian Airlines established its own chain of testing labs with about 10 locations on the U.S. mainland to make testing accessible for travelers. Mannis said the airline felt a responsibility to communicate testing requirements and safe behavior to passengers. He also stated that economic recovery depends on the visitor industry and called for continued dialogue about sustainable economic growth and diversification.
“Many of the decisions that we had to make in this period of time were financial decisions that were challenging; we really had to be guided not so much by the numbers on the page but by who we were as a brand, who we were in this community, and the role we wanted to play.”
“The state has decided that it is important for people who travel here to be tested before they come so that we can keep our community safe, and we ended up setting up our own chain of testing labs with about 10 locations on the U.S. mainland to make testing as affordable and accessible as possible.”
“It was something I would never have imagined as someone in management in an airline that we would be running a chain of testing laboratories, but it was something we had to do to adapt to the moment and to make sure that we were not just operating commercially but really making sure that as many people who came here we...”
“We have felt a very strong burden of responsibility to make sure that we were communicating to the people who traveled on Hawaiian Airlines about what they need to do to get tested and how they should behave when they come here to keep our community safe.”
“Our economic recovery as a community is going to depend on the visitor industry, and while diversification is important, nothing will get the engine of our economy moving faster than welcoming visitors back safely.”
“It is incredibly important that we all continue the dialogue about how we grow our economy sustainably, take the lessons over the last year, and build them into having a more resilient economy and a more cohesive community.”
“Our focus has been on how we can reopen safely, using the best science available to make sure that we can resume operations with measures in place that keep our guests, employees, and community safe.”
“We have a very strong balance sheet and were able to get recourse to some federal aid which has allowed us to keep all of our employees employed.”
“While there's a great deal of uncertainty in our future around how and when the state will reopen to air travel, we've been able to use this time to invest in putting measures in place to make sure that we're ready to do so safely when the time comes.”
“The experience is going to be very different for guests when they arrive, but the most important thing is really thinking collectively through how we can reopen the air travel system and still keep our communities safe.”
“No one measure is ever going to be foolproof so we need lots of layers embedded in the whole travel system to make sure that we can keep people safe, and that means it's not just an airline responsibility or a county responsibility or a state or hotel responsibilityβit's really all of us working together as a community...”
“We've had to have some really tough conversations and I think that's going to continue because even if we were to start to reopen on August 1st, it's not going to be like flipping a switch for our business.”
“We've partnered with the Department of Education to help get schools ready for the school year, doing things like sanding and painting bathrooms at Haleiwa Elementary, to keep everyone focused on doing something during this time of really great uncertainty.”
“Without reopening safely, I think this community faces very grave consequences both economic and human from delaying the reopening.”
“Other destinations have figured out how to balance some of the health outcomes with the economic risks, and we're very enthusiastic that we can find a way forward to do that.”
Island Focus is a monthly half-hour television series produced by 'Εlelo Community Media as a community service. The showΒ ...
Island Focus is a monthly half-hour television series produced by 'Εlelo Community Media as a community service. The showΒ ...
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