Hawaiian Airlines

Hawaiian Airlines uses its Boeing 717 aircraft for the majority of its intra-island routes and as I was flying within the Hawaiian Islands last week, I had a chance to take a look at the First Class cabin that the airline offers on some of its shortest routes.

In the wake of Qantas starting to reboot a variety of long-haul routes and Singapore Airlines saying that it will operate Vaccinated Travel Lanes from Sydney and Melbourne, Hawaiian Airlines has confirmed that it will join the party and will bring back its Honolulu - Sydney service in mid-December.

Hawaiian Airlines has announced that it will offer a seasonal service between Phoenix and Maui this summer as it looks to complement the service it already offers between Phoenix and Honolulu. 

One of life's rules has always been that when an airline pushes through a change that's negative for customers all of its competitors rush to follow suit. Rarely have airlines rushed to copy a change that's positive for customers, and yet here we have the fifth US airline in a week announcing that it is eliminating most change fees for is customers. This has been a good week for flyers.

It seems long ago than February but it was only three months ago that United, together with American, Delta, and Hawaiian, applied to the US Department of Transport to operate the new Tokyo Haneda slots that are up for grabs. The US DoT has just 12 slots it can bestow upon the carriers it thinks will use them best (in the interest of consumers) but, between them, the US carriers applied for 19 so that left the DoT with some decisions to make.

I wouldn’t normally even consider booking a Hawaiian Airlines First Class fare for a flight as short as the one between Maui and Kauai (approximately 40 minutes) but, on this trip, the math more or less made sense.