United Airlines Will Add A New Hawaii Service From SoCal

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Updated 13 February: Flights are now loaded into the booking systems and are on sale.

With Southwest less than a month away from launching new services to Honolulu and Maui out of its base in Long Beach, United Airlines has now announced that it will be upping its game in Southern California by launching its own new route to Honolulu in a few months’ time.

United’s Orange County – Honolulu Flights

From 6 May 2021, United Airlines will offer a daily non-stop service between Orange County (SNA) and Honolulu using its Boeing 737-700 aircraft. The planned schedule (which is subject to change) currently looks like this:

UA411 SNA 08:30 – 11:30 HNL (Daily)
UA410 HNL 12:50 – 21:10 SNA (Daily)

As of 13 February 2021, these flights are now on sale.

The Aircraft

United Airlines configures its 737-700 aircraft in two different ways but both offer the same number of First Class (12) and Economy Class (114) seats. The key difference between the two configurations is that one offers more Economy Plus seats (36) than the other and, fortunately for travelers on this route, it’s the configuration with more Economy Plus seats that is currently showing in the airline’s systems.

Based on the fact that United’s standard Economy Class seats in the 737-700 offer just 30” of pitch (legroom) regardless of which configuration the aircraft comes in, I suggest that travelers do their best to avoid them if at all possible. Hawaii is over 5 hours flying time away from Orange County and 30” of pitch is an incredibly tight space to be packed into for a flight of that length.

United’s California – Hawaii Routes

United’s new service between Orange County and Honolulu increases the number of routes that it offers between California and Hawaii to 11 with the rest of the routes looking like this:

• Los Angeles – Honolulu (Oahu)
• Los Angeles – Kahului (Maui)
• Los Angeles – Kona (Hawaii)
• Los Angeles – Hilo (Hawaii)
• Los Angeles – Lihue (Kauai)
• San Francisco – Honolulu (Oahu)
• San Francisco – Kahului (Maui)
• San Francisco – Kona (Hawaii)
• San Francisco – Hilo (Hawaii)
• San Francisco – Lihue (Kauai)

In the coming weeks, it will be interesting to see if United takes any further steps to counter Southwest’s moves in Long Beach and it will be interesting to see if Hawaiian is pressed into action too.

Regardless, right now it’s a good time to be planning a trip to Hawaii if you live in SoCal. With Southwest already offering $99 fares to Honolulu and Maui, with American, Alaska, and Hawaiian all competing for passengers, and now with United adding capacity to Honolulu, there’s a lot of pressure to keep fares low…and that’s just how we like it 🙂

Bottom Line

United has announced that it will launch a new daily service between Orange County and Honolulu on 6 May 2021. The service will be operated by the airline’s 737-700 aircraft and flights have now gone on sale.