Alaska Airlines sends rescue flights & wildfire relief to help people on Maui

August 10, 2023
Alaska Airlines
7 min read

Aug 12, 2023; SeaTac, WA, USA; Alaska Airlines transports 11,000 pounds of relief supplies for Lahaina, Maui wildfire victims. Alaska Air Cargo team members loaded supplies onto a flight to Kahului OGG from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Photo Credit: Joe Nicholson, Alaska Airlines

Updated Aug. 17

Alaska Airlines is closely monitoring the devastating impacts from the Maui wildfires and continues to operate eight daily departures from the island. All non-essential travel to West Maui (including Lāhainā, Nāpili, Kā‘anapali, and Kapalua) is strongly discouraged through the month of August so these communities can focus on healing and recovery.

We are offering a flexible travel policy if you would like to change or cancel your flight.

Other areas of Maui (including Kahului, Wailuku, Kīhei, Wailea, Mākena and Hāna) remain open — as well as the other Hawaiian Islands, like Kaua‘i, O‘ahu and Hawai‘i Island — and are ready to welcome visitors who are traveling to the Islands with care and respect.

To help people leave the island last week, we stood up a rescue flights, which departed from our Seattle Cargo facility on Wednesday Aug. 9. The flights were filled with relief supplies including water, non-perishable food, pillows, blankets, towels, wipes, baby formula and diapers. The aircraft brought guests back to Seattle. And while we do not normally operate flights between the Hawaiian islands, we also stood up rescue flights between Maui and Honolulu to move guests off of Maui and bring critical supplies in.

Since Aug. 9, Alaska Air Cargo has transported 189,000 pounds of relief supplies for Lahaina, Maui wildfire victims.

Folasi was one of the lead ramp air freight agents who helped pack the rescue flight with relief supplies. In the two years he’s worked for Alaska, he says this is what our company is all about.

“It felt good to be part of the team who are making sure that the supplies loaded safely so it can make it to Maui. I have family there, so seeing the plane take off made me feel good that Alaska Airlines acted quickly to help those in need and to know that the airline I work for responded so fast especially having family in Maui made me feel good,” he said.

We’re also partnering with Airlink, which you can support here through cash donations.

Our hearts are with those on Maui, and our employees and their families, during this devastating time,” said Daniel Chun, Alaska’s Director of Sales, Community & Public Relations in Hawaii. “We hope we can help bring much-needed care and relief to those who’ve experienced catastrophic loss throughout the community.”

Folasi is one of many remarkable employees stepping up to support the Maui community and our guests visiting the island. Pilots and flight attendants are volunteering to fly rescue flights, airport employees are showing up to lend a hand wherever needed, we’ve offered food and supplies to stranded guests at the airport, employees from Seattle have flown in to support the team on the ground on Maui, and our contact center employees have been helping guests who need assistance.

It’s in times of crisis that our team’s values of own safety, do the right thing and be kindhearted shine through. We’re proud of the way all our employees are rallying together to help and care for the Maui community and our guests.

Alaska employees at Maui (OGG) Kahului Airport today, along with cargo relief packages.

How you can help support Maui

Donate your miles to Kanu Hawai‘i and Maui Rapid Response to help relocate displaced Maui residents while they work to rebuild what they have lost. Alaska has donated 5 million miles toward this effort and will also match the first 1 million miles donated by Alaska Mileage Plan members through August 31.

Support nonprofit partners, such as Airlink, who are well-versed in the proper packaging, regulations and restrictions needed to move supplies via cargo, and for safety reasons—it is important that we only accept items we know we can fly. Alaska has also donated 1.5 million miles to Airlink to transport first responders to Maui.

Contribute to Kāko‘o Maui through the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, which works to enhance the cultural, economic, political and community development of Native Hawaiians. All proceeds will go directly to Maui organizations in support of relief efforts. The Alaska Airlines Foundation, together with Alaska employees and our company’s employee Matching Gift program, have pledged more than $100,000 to this campaign over the past few days.

We are proud of the caring community throughout our network and want to continue encouraging broad support for Maui relief.

The best way people can help is by donating miles or supporting one of our nonprofit partners to ensure relief is making it to where it’s needed most. Non-profit partners, such as Airlink, are well-versed in the proper packaging, regulations and restrictions needed to move supplies via cargo, and we only want to accept supplies we know we can fly.

It’s moving to see the how many people want to support, but our ask is that donations go to the non-profit organizations coordinating relief efforts instead of individual in-kind donations.

Thank you for your support

Alaska Mileage Plan members can donate additional miles to Kanu Hawai‘i by logging into your mileage account, click the donate miles link, and select the Alaska Airlines Disaster Relief pool or go directly to our CARE Miles website. All miles donated to this pool through the month of August will go towards Kanu Hawai‘i. Alaska will match the first 1 million miles donated.

Donate Miles

“My heart is saddened by the wildfires on Maui, as we have lost over a century of historical and cultural landmarks in Lāhainā, local businesses and residences, but most of all, we have lost people from our lāhui, our community. The people of Maui are strong and resilient and will rebuild, and although we may not be able to replace what was lost, we must do our part to provide relief in any form possible so that our Kānaka, our people, can once again stand tall.
Eō e Maui Nui a Kama! #mauistrong”
-Keoni, Alaska SFO Flight Attendant and member of our Pacific Islander Alliance employee group

Traveling to/from Maui

We are offering a flexible travel policy if you would like to change or cancel your flight to Maui.

In accordance with emergency orders from the state of Hawai‘i, we’re discouraging guests vacation travel to West Maui (Lāhainā, Kā‘anapali, Kapalua).The flexible travel policy allows guests with planned travel to Maui to change their flight to another Hawaiian island.

To help the Maui community, for this emergency, we are allowing guests to cancel their reservations and receive a refund to their original form of payment upon request. As always, you can choose to keep the refund in your Account wallet or receive a credit certificate for future travel, but we are doing everything we can to encourage our guests to rethink their trips to the island right now.