Over 50 Hawaiian Airlines volunteers from Australia, Hawai‘i, Tahiti, and American Samoa came together last week to remove debris from the coastline between Sydney’s Brighton-Le-Sands Beach and Monterey.
The Hawaiian Airlines team had a huge day in the sunshine collecting ocean litter as part of the airline’s 90th anniversary ‘giving–back’ programme.
The Hawaiian visitors were welcomed by local Gadigal woman Louise Adermann who offered a Welcome to Country. Hawaiian Airlines Director of Community and Cultural Relations Debbie Nakanelua-Richards responded with a moving Hawaiian Oli chant.
The Programme
The ‘Hawaiian Airlines Team Kokua Program’ demonstrates the hospitality and aloha of Hawaiian Airlines for the communities it serves by improving the lives of its neighbours and caring for the land that sustains them all.
The program is focused on supporting communities in the areas of culture, education, environment, and health & human services.
“This initiative at Brighton-Le-Sands is just one of many. We’ve been doing beach cleanups throughout the Pacific, in Japan, Hawai‘i, New Zealand, etc., and working with our different partners around our network to give back. It’s been a great privilege and, to us, a great way to recognize 90 years of service.”
Andrew Stanbury, Regional Director of Australia and New Zealand and Hawaiian Airlines
Cleaning up our Coastlines
In partnership with Australian nonprofit Tangaroa Blue Foundation and the Bayside City Council, Hawaiian Airlines employees and local industry partners recovered some 50kgs of litter from the shore, including single-use plastics, fishing line, cigarette butts, and more.
The volunteer initiative was organised in recognition of Hawaiian’s 90th anniversary (11 November 2019) as the largest and longest-serving airline in the state of Hawai‘i.
Hawaiian has been committed to the Australian market since 2004. The airline recently recognized 15 years of flying between the Aloha State to Sydney this past May and will complete its seventh year of service between Honolulu and Brisbane this November.
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