The regional Honolulu, Hawaii based Island Airlines has revoked their pilot’s Christmas bonuses.

The regional Honolulu, Hawaii based airline company Island Air has revoked their pilots' Christmas bonuses.

About 45 pilots received four thousand dollars in holiday bonus payments, but the airline says they were paid prematurely.

In total, the bonuses were less than 180 thousand dollars.

The airline plans to take the money out of pilot’s paychecks over the next four months, or pilots can pay them back directly with a check for the full amount.

Island Air, owned by the billionaire Larry Ellison has said that they will repay the bonuses next summer when they have new aircrafts.

The pilot‘s union wrote in a letter to members: “The bookkeeping and tax complications, plus the waste of staff time, simply do not justify recovery of monies today just to repay in a short period.”

Originally, the bonuses were to be paid 30 days before the arrival of new airplanes.

The planes were delayed after a new CEO took over the company and another group was brought in to analyze the new fleet of aircrafts.

Analysis is expected to take until late January of 2015.

Island Air has yet to turn a profit since Ellison bought the company in 2013.