Hawaiian Airlines said it will open its ticket counters at Honolulu International Airport at 4 a.m. tomorrow morning to handle an anticipated crush of passengers in the wake of Aloha Airlines' shutdown.

The air carrier, while saying it doesn't know what to expect, said it will open its vacant seats to people holding Aloha tickets for travel tomorrow. The carrier is adding extra flights to help handle Aloha passengers and will be honoring Aloha tickets on a standby basis for travel through Thursday. Go! also will honor Aloha's tickets on a standby basis through Thursday.

Aloha is shutting down its passenger service because of losses in a bruising interisland airfare war between it, Hawaiian and relative newcomer go! airlines. Aloha had operated about 700 weekly flights between Hawai'i's islands and another 120 in transpacific service.

"Today is an incredibly sad day," said Thom Nulty, Aloha chief marketing officer, during a press briefing at the carrier's interisland terminal.

"This whole area will become pretty vacant."

He said Aloha carried up to 11,000 or so passengers daily, more than 1,000 of which were carried on the airline's transpacific flights. The carrier is closing down having about 400,000 reservations on its books. Nulty said he expects most of these people will be able to rebook on other airlines after getting refunds from their credit card companies.

He also said the shutdown is producing a wave of calls to the company's reservations lines.

"Half of the people who are calling aren't looking for help, they are calling to say how bad they feel," said Nulty, who is out of a job with the passenger operations' shutdown. But as of tonight "there will be no one to talk to at Aloha."

Hawaiian, once a fierce competitor of Aloha, said it has been working with the former foe to try and accommodate passengers as possible. It has recommended people holding Aloha tickets seek refunds through their credit card companies and rebook on its interisland flights with a $49 one-way fare it is offering.

It also will allow people holding Aloha tickets to use the tickets on Hawaiian on a standby basis. Hawaiian said its staffers will work at four counters in the interisland terminal at Honolulu Airport to handle standby travelers on a first-come, first-serve basis. Similar counters will open before 5 a.m. at Neighbor Island airports.

Blaine Miyasato, vice president of customer service, said he did not know how many standby seats would be available tomorrow and that seats being booked at the $49 fare were going at a fast clip today.

Hawaiian has said it is adding 6,000 more seats daily while go! is boosting its schedule by 2,000 seats each day.

That's short of matching what Aloha offered and is certain to cause short-term disruptions in the interisland travel market until more capacity is added.

Nulty said Aloha had scheduled 11,000 to 13,000 seats daily in the interisland market.

Miyasato said Hawaiian will also try to accommodate Aloha passengers that hold tickets to the Mainland on a standby basis through Thursday.