The Aloha Airlines shutdown kept travel agencies busy and passengers scrambling yesterday, as hundreds tried to grab a limited number of seats on other carriers or inquire about refunds for their Aloha seats.

Bride-to-be Courtney McGrath, of Roseville, Calif., was one of a slew of people working phones yesterday to try to find other travel arrangements. Most of her 80-person wedding party purchased seats on Aloha Airlines from California to Maui.

By yesterday afternoon, she had gotten five cancellations to her Maui wedding later this month because friends couldn't afford to fork over more money for another seat. About 30 others hadn't decided yet.

"The original thought was, 'My wedding is going to fall apart,'" McGrath said.

The tale was one of dozens of travel nightmares that played out yesterday, a busy time for air travel in the Islands with hundreds trying to get to Hilo for the Merrie Monarch Festival that begins today and many others headed home to the Mainland or elsewhere from spring break festivities.

Aloha carried about 11,000 passengers daily, more than 1,000 of whom were on the airline's trans-Pacific flights. The carrier shut down passenger operations with about 400,000 reservations on its books.

"There's an awful lot of scrambling being done as we speak," said Rex Johnson, president of the Hawai'i Tourism Authority. But Johnson also said that the other airlines have helped greatly by increasing their capacity, which should meet demand.

In the short term, though, plenty of passengers will be inconvenienced.

"It will be a little hard on the Merrie Monarch Festival," Johnson said.

Luana Kavelu, executive director of the festival, said all but two hula halau chose Hawaiian Airlines and so were not held up by the shutdown. Lots of festival-goers, however, were booked on Aloha Airlines and are now searching for flights to Hilo on already-booked airlines, several travel agents said yesterday.

Earl Loo, president of Business and Leisure Holidays, said the No. 1 concern from his clients so far is how to go about getting a refund for Aloha seats.

Some of his clients have corporate accounts and purchased lots of Aloha Airline tickets in advance. "It's a major inconvenience," he said, adding that his office was bombarded with calls from concerned clients yesterday morning.

"We went through the exercise of explaining what options they have."

For one Maui soccer club, the shutdown meant a lot of out-of-pocket expenses.

The Maui United Soccer Club had paid Aloha Airlines $6,500 to fly 50 players, parents and coaches to Honolulu for this weekend's HYSA championships. One of the three squads made new bookings on Hawaiian yesterday because they didn't want to gamble going standby. But the new seats cost $110 each for the roundtrip.

Rhonda Maushardt, one of the parents for the club, said she went on Hawaiian Airlines' Web site first thing yesterday morning and was able to book 17 Hawaiian seats for players and chaperones traveling in two groups.

It wasn't easy.

"By the time I was able to book online, flights were literally disappearing before my eyes," Maushardt said. "It was a headache." And the parents still don't know whether they'll ever see a refund from Aloha for the first tickets.

McGrath, the bride-to-be, said she recommended Aloha to her wedding guests because of their direct flight from California to Maui. The airline also offered travel discounts to wedding guests as part of a "Wedding Wings" program.

"Aloha Airlines is kind of the reason we decided to have our wedding in Maui," McGrath, a substitute teacher, said. "Now, we're just in complete shock."

Meanwhile, four students from a six-person California high school team in Honolulu for a national robotics competition were able to make it out on a Hawaiian Airlines flight yesterday, after waiting 10 hours at the airport.

One student and a teacher couldn't get on the flight, and so were trying for a different flight last night. The team was able to use its Aloha tickets to fly standby on the Hawaiian flight. But since many of the Hawaiian flights were already full, getting a standby seat proved hard.

Travis Covington, a mentor for the team, said, the students were frustrated — not to mention very tired. He said many people at the airport yesterday didn't seem to know what to do or where to go with their Aloha tickets.

"Everybody had no idea what was going on," he said.