Hawaiian Air Sells Non-Stop

Coming home yesterday from the mainland, we were struck by the ever more blatant and sometimes annoying commercialism of Hawaiian Airlines. The other airlines we used on this 10,000 mile trip, United and American, were nowhere as bad.

Before I go on, let me just say that overall we like Hawaiian, have flown them for years and are Pualani Platinum, which is their highest level of frequent fliers.  Hawaiian has been very good to us and visa versa.

Nonetheless, here’s how we were struck by some commercialism you might not expect to find or might be surprised to learn more about:

1. Island maps. Hawaiian will offer you a free map of your destination island on all inter-island flights. Before you think altruism, think again. While the maps are nice, and make cute gifts too, this is a huge revenue opportunity for Hawaiian. It puts their map advertisers right in front of your face throughout your island visit.

2. Hawaiian Skies. This is Hawaiian’s in-flight video program featuring destination activities and cultural information. It’s gone from being really nice to one very long, obvious infomercial, parading one advertiser after another in front of your unable to move face.

3. Hilo Hattie promotion. Hawaiian is forever trying to get you to shop at their clothing and Hawaiiana store partner. When the Hilo Hattie promotions first started years ago, we even got some very nice T-shirts for five dollars. As with everything, the deals have since changed and not for the better. Look for flight attendants to be handing out these generally useless coupons when you disembark.

4. Hawaiian Miles Visa card. The flight attendants strongly promote the Bank of America Visa card, and walk up and down the aisle with applications.  For many people, however, the 20,000 mile sign-up bonus may not be worth the $50 annual fee. Hawaiian raised the mileage requirements for all award travel earlier this month, such that 100 mile, one-way inter-island flights will now cost from 7,500 to 15,000 each!

5. Hana Hou In-flight magazine. We’ve been told that this is the most expensive print advertising in our state. At over 100,000 copies per issue, it has the largest distribution too. While there’s nothing wrong with it in any way, it always causes me pause when an advertiser is paying a huge amount to get my business.

We jokingly wondered if soon we could have our name engraved next to our favorite Hawaiian Air seat, the way some restaurants do.  What’s your experience with commercialism at 30,000 feet?