Aloha Airlines and Kiritimati (Christmas Island), becoming the first airline to operate ETOPS approved B737s. In late 1986, Ching and vice-chairman Sheridan Ing announced plans to take the company private, and it remained in the hands of the Ing and Ching families until its emergence from bankruptcy in 2006, when additional investors including The Yucaipa Cos., Aloha Aviation Investment Group, and Aloha Hawaii Investors LLC took stakes in the airline. In 1987, the airline acquired Princeville Airways, renaming Aloha IslandAir, which became known as Island Air in 1995. In 2003, Island Air was sold to Gavarnie Holding and became an independent airline.
Aloha diminishes the terms original meaning and reduces it to the more superficial expression of "Good wishes". Anthropologist Francis Newton states that "Aloha is a complex and profound sentiment. Such emotions defy definition". Hawaiians believe the concept to be unique, with no English equivalent. Aloha Aloha (; ) is the Hawaiian word for love, affection, peace, compassion and mercy, that is commonly used as a simple greeting but has a deeper cultural and spiritual significance to native Hawaiians. A greeting of love and compassion; also means "to be in the presence of the divinity" or in the presence of ("alo") the