Mokupuni Trijet Poster

In the 1970s and 80s Mokupuni had to move on and expand, but with the lack of modern ETOPS the only way to successfully get to the US mainland profitably in that time was with trijets. The airline settled on the DC 10-30 as their mainstay for long haul operations. They were painted in a very minimalistic livery to save costs and most registrations feature a yellow stripe instead of orange as orange paint was more expensive. N2003M, N2304M, N2664M, N2210M, and N2115M were the only ones painted with the orange. and the other 15 were painted with the yellow stripe. Times were hard for the airline as it officially declared chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 19 1973 and emerged on April 20 1975 under new management and a very important partnership with Sierra Pacific. Sierra Pacific heavily invested, and ended up with a 30 percent stake in the airline that would diminish over time to the 5 percent it is today. The restructuring included re-evaluating the airline's fleet and Mokupuni bought five Lockheed L1011 Tri-Stars from Alden in 1985 when Alden had no further purpose for the airliner. The airline invested in a more modern look and a much nicer cabin and it payed off greatly. Travel to the Hawaiian Islands began to increase sharply and a new luxurious airplane was there to take them there. The former Alden planes would continue flying for Mokupuni through the end of the 1990s and were one of the most recognized airplanes to fly for the airline, finally giving way to the A330 as it's overseas successor.

The first aircraft featured, DC 10-30 Registered N2210M was delivered on June 16 1973
MSN: 46710
Config: 20C210Y
Powerplant: X3 GE CF6-50C2
Retired: August 9 1990
Scrapped: May 11 2004

The second aircraft featured, Lockheed L1011-500 Tri-Star Registered N404AL was delivered March 22 1985
MSN: 1220
Config: 8F14C156Y
Powerplant: X3 Rolls Royce RB 211-524B4
Retired: July 10 1999