A nearly 30-year-old Hawaii ferry service that once was a lifeline for Molokai residents who couldn’t find work on the island is in danger of shutting down.

Sea Link of Hawaii Inc. asked a state commission earlier this week for permission to cease operating its Maui-Molokai ferry after three years of financial losses that the company said is partly due to unfair competition from federally subsidized air passenger service.

“We cannot do it anymore,” said David Jung, Sea Link’s president, referring to $920,000 in net operating losses over the last three years. “We can’t afford to do it.”

Jung petitioned the Public Utilities Commission to cease service. However, he would like to see the state or Maui County take over the ferry route and run it like a local bus system operated by a private contractor and funded by riders and taxpayers.

“The general public doesn’t mind supporting a public bus service, but for a private company to get public support is really tough,” he said.

Sea Link, also known as the Molokai Ferry, was established in 1987 and initially subsidized by the state to help Molokai residents commute to Maui for jobs after pineapple farming was phased out on Molokai. At the time, there was a shortage of workers on Maui largely driven by an expanding tourism industry.

According to the PUC, the state provided Sea Link with $30,000 a month in return for Sea Link transporting Molokai residents to Maui jobs at discounted rates also partly covered by employers.

A “side benefit,” the PUC said, was regular ferry service between the two islands for other residents and tourists.

In 1996 the state ended its subsidy, which caused Sea Link to temporarily shut down before resuming operations without state support. In recent years the number of workers relying on the ferry has dwindled and put pressure on Sea Link to cut back service and make other changes in an effort to survive.

When the state quit supporting the ferry, Sea Link had 151 passengers in its employee commuter program, available to Molokai residents who made at least four round trips to Maui for work weekly. That number had fallen to 14 as of June 2015, Sea Link reported to the PUC.

Molokai consistently has the highest rate of unemployment in the islands. In July, 9.3 percent of Molokai residents were unemployed. That compared with 3.4 percent for Maui and the state overall. In June, Molokai’s unemployment rate was 11.6 percent.

Sea Link cut costs in March by dramatically reducing its frequency from one daily round trip three days a week and two daily round trips on the other four days to just one daily round trip on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The ferry departs Maui for Molokai at 7 a.m. and leaves Molokai for the return trip to Maui at 5 p.m.

The company, which operates between Lahaina and Kaunakakai, also obtained $105,000 from Maui County last year to help sustain business and obtained PUC approval to cancel trips if it had fewer than 20 passenger reservations.

Still, losses continued. Sea Link reported net operating losses of $108,235 in 2013, $288,068 in 2014 and $523,555 last year. Jung said the company, which has about 10 employees and revenue close to $2 million in recent years, is on pace to lose $200,000 this year and cannot do anything else to survive.

One-way adult fares cost $62, and Sea Link said it can’t raise prices without reducing passenger volume.

The average number of passengers per one-way ride this year through July has been 38 on the 149-passenger Molokai Princess. The most in one month was 1,691 in January, where about half the passengers were residents and half tourists. The lowest was 859 in July, with tourists outnumbering residents by 524 to 335.

Jung blames low ridership partly on two airlines that receive federal subsidies — Mokulele and Makani Kai — and charge less per trip than he can for a ferry trip that takes about an hour and 45 minutes.

Flights between Maui and Molokai cost $50 on Makani Kai and can be the same for Mokulele around the same time as ferry departures.

Makani Kai receives its $710,656 annual subsidy to serve Kalaupapa, Molokai, while Mokulele gets assistance of $417,310 a year to serve Waimea on Hawaii island. But Jung said the subsidies help the airlines keep other fares low at the expense of Sea Link.

The PUC, which has the power to force Sea Link to continue operations short of bankruptcy, is soliciting public testimony through Sept. 27 on the company’s request to end service. Comments can be mailed to the commission at 465 S. King St., Room 103, Honolulu 96813; or sent to hawaii.puc@hawaii.gov via email.

Jung said he knows many people would like Sea Link to continue, though he also said the company has no prospect of staying in business without financial support.

“I bleed for Molokai,” he said. “We’ve tried our hardest to keep it going.”