Ron Burkle’s Yucaipa Cos. and Los Angeles-based private equity firm IBS Capital Holdings have agreed to buy Aloha Airlines for $100 million in cash and debt, allowing the company to emerge from bankruptcy by year-end.

Yucaipa will become the majority shareholder in Aloha, Hawaii’s No. 2 airline, while Aloha’s longtime owners heirs of Hawaiian investor Hung Wo Ching and developer Sheridan Ing will become minority shareholders with a seat on the company’s board.

IBS Capital is managed by former Chicago Bear wide receiver Willie Gault, whose Aloha Aviation Investment Group LLC recently acquired ERA Aviation Inc., a regional airline in Alaska. His company has experience buying distressed airline assets.

David A. Banmiller, who took the helm as president and chief executive of Aloha Airgroup Inc. in November, will remain the airline’s chief executive. Banmiller, the former chief operating officer at Air Jamaica, is credited with cutting $60 million in costs and renegotiating contracts with the Aloha’s five unions as the airline moves toward profitability.

The $100 million investment, half cash and half debt, will allow Aloha to keep 3,600 airline jobs while paying off more than $65 million to lenders Ableco Finance LLC and Goldman Sachs Credit Partners LP. The airline also will repay $4.7 million in loans from its longtime owners.

Aloha, with nearly $500 million in annual revenues, operates 700 inter-island flights in Hawaii and 140 weekly flights, mostly to San Francisco and Southern California. The company posted a $24 million loss in 2004 and blamed rising fuel costs when it filed bankruptcy in December.