The Medicaid charter sale for the inbound flight, next Monday, from Honolulu is being branded—by some who’ve paid a higher fare for the outbound flight—unfair and discriminatory.
On Monday, Medicaid Director Sandra King Young announced that only three people had booked for the Honolulu/Pago leg, therefore Medicaid is dropping the fare to $500 just for the inbound flight. The fare for the return flight is $750.
Callers to KHJ News said, for a government agency to charge different fares for the same flight is unacceptable. “Are we going to eat steak and lobster instead of sandwiches on the flight from Honolulu to Pago Pago,” one caller asked.
“It’s not right. It’s not fair,” said one man, adding a government agency shouldn’t be engaged in unfair practices like this.
A woman said, government officials traveling are the ones filling up the flights to Honolulu. When the Medicaid charter was announced she was happy. But when she found out about the $500 fare for the inbound flight after paying $750 for the return flight, she became upset. She too feels Medicaid shouldn’t be charging different fares for the same flight.
Medicaid Director King-Young, when told of the complaints said from Honolulu, “normally the Medicaid charter offers the same fare, unfortunately however the demand on the charter is for the outbound so it was easy to fill.”
For the inbound flight “no one signed up for the flight.”
She told KHJ News, “I made the call to drop the fare to $500 to try and recoup something for the charter.”
To date, only 16 people are booked on the Honolulu to Pago Pago flight, said the Medicaid Director.
She pointed out that if Medicaid hadn’t operated the roundtrip, outbound travelers would have had to pay $952 for their tickets.
“The outbound is lucky they are only paying $750 and not $952,” she quipped.
The Monday charter was requested by LBJ to return their contract workers and LBJ referral patients.
“Our job is to try and recoup costs of any seats not used up by the patients and contract workers to offset the cost of the flight. If not, LBJ is going to have to pay for the flight. Because it’s looking like we cannot sell the seats from the HNL to PPG leg, we will take a loss on the flight and the LBJ is going to have to pay for the empty seat,” said King-Young.
“Those people complaining about the $750 don’t have to travel on the Medicaid charter, they can wait and travel in July when new flights are added.”
