It’s a vastly different time than when Alaska Airlines started flying to Hawaii 15 years ago. We hadn’t even started thinking about Southwest Hawaii flights. And Hawaiian Airlines had no planes to fly directly to the neighbor islands from the mainland.
When Alaska Hawaii flights started, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.
Fifteen years ago, we were approaching the demise of much beloved Aloha Airlines, whose exit we’d long anticipated for many reasons. ATA Airlines was also at the time on its way to bankruptcy. What was left behind was a void and a huge opportunity for an airline with smart thinking and just the right planes. Enters Alaska Airlines!
The first Alaska flight was from Seattle to Honolulu in October 2007. Lihue flights started immediately thereafter, followed soon by Anchorage to Honolulu and both Kona and Kahului flights.
Celebrating 15- years of Alaska Airlines Hawaii flights this week.
It culminated Monday night with a big party in Honolulu hosted by Alaska Airlines. Beat of Hawaii editor Jeff island hopped to attend the birthday gala. In attendance was a wide range of people from throughout Hawaii’s travel industry, plus executives and employees of Alaska Airlines, including their CEO Ben Minicucci. The event was organized by Director of Sales, Community & Public Relations, Daniel Chun, a well-respected, popular fixture in Hawaii travel who joined Alaska more than a decade ago.
Dignitaries attending the anniversary event included Honolulu’s mayor and Hawaii’s governor. Governor Ige said he has a soft spot in his heart for Alaska Airlines because they entered the Hawaii travel scene just as two other airlines were folding. The additional lift Alaska offered was vital at that time for Hawaii’s economy.
One of the standouts in our minds that was evident at Alaska’s anniversary celebration is their contribution beyond just flights to Hawaii. The company is known for its philanthropy and local partnerships. That has been the case for as long as we can remember. Yesterday’s event, for example, took place at the Weinberg Ho‘okupu Center, the home to Kupu, a leading Hawaii environmental education nonprofit.
Kupu offers a first-of-its-kind facility devoted to encouraging and preparing local youth to become leaders in the green jobs sector. Kupu was the large event’s caterer, and Jeff had a chance to enjoy the food and meet both the kids and their CEO, John Leong. It’s an impressive undertaking.
Alaska/Mokulele partnership announced.
Ben Minicucci (Alaska CEO) spoke with guests about today’s announced partnership with Mokulele Airlines for a one-ticket connecting service to all its Hawaii destinations. Guests will earn Alaska miles on Mokulele flights. That is set to begin early in 2023. Alaska said that Mokulele has over 800 weekly flights, including to underserved West Maui, Hilo, Waimea (Big Island), Lanai, and Molokai. Mokulele flies primarily with 9-passenger Grand Caravans and has one 28-passenger Saab 340 in service and one more coming.
Alaska Airlines’ Hawaii product.
The airline has up to 30 nonstop daily flights from Anchorage, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego) to Honolulu, Maui, Kauai, and the Big Island. Some flights are seasonal.
In terms of flight offerings, Alaska flies Boeing 737NG and 737MAX planes to Hawaii, which is largely the same as what Southwest uses. Alaska has had only direct-to-island flights, without interisland, at least until the Mokulele deal commences. By way of comparison, Southwest can also bring guests interisland without changing carriers.
As for the service component, Alaska offers economy, a primarily extended legroom product (dubbed Premium Class), and a business class product still called First Class. They offer $8 WiFi (same as Southwest). Hawaiian’s WiFi will be free when it begins in 2023. Alaska has an unusually good range (for an airline) of upgraded fresh meal options that can be preordered in all classes.
Southwest and Hawaiian competition and what’s in the future for Alaska Hawaii flights.
As we said above, Southwest wasn’t even in our mind’s eye when Alaska jumped into the fray 15 years ago. Southwest only came to Hawaii in 2019. Here’s what is going on in the competition.
1. Southwest competes with Alaska on all fronts except the Pacific Northwest, where it reigns dominant. Southwest is a force to be reckoned with, and that’s the reality of Alaska’s situation with Hawaii flights. From all its California gateways cities, Alaska faces direct competition with Southwest Airlines. In economy, Southwest’s product is excellent, which attests to their popularity with California travelers. While Alaska would seemingly be more Hawaii focused than ubiquitous Southwest, remember that in Southwest’s “c-suite” sits an ex-Hawaiian Airlines’ guru, Andy Watterson, who’s perhaps destinated to lead SWA at some point.
There’s not much differentiation in aircraft between Alaska and Southwest, with roughly the same fleet. On the other hand, two points do make a difference. First, Alaska seems to have a stronger suit for attracting business travelers. How much that matters to Hawaii, however, may not be huge. Alaska also has a somewhat more premium soft-product (service) in economy, and does have a business class product offering that is a significant upgrade from economy, albeit not the popular lie flat.
2. Hawaiian Airlines added their fleet of narrowbody A321neo planes starting in 2018. That was the first time the Hawaii bellwether could compete with Alaska directly on thin routes to the neighbor islands. It made Hawaiian nimble for the first time and provided another obstacle for Alaska’s raison d’etre in Hawaii – the direct-to-island service. And for those cities where Hawaiian has A330 flights, there’s wide-body plus lie-flat seating which is in a different league from Alaska.
Going forward, it’s obvious that Alaska will be faced with tough choices in Hawaii.
The first is going head-to-head with Southwest. While doing that with Hawaiian is more feasible, the behemoth 800-pound gorilla Southwest is just no one you want to tangle with. And yet that’s what’s happening from gateways like San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Jose. These were great routes for Alaska before Southwest and before Hawaiian’s narrowbody fleet. Now, they are costly as ticket prices remain suppressed.
Alaska, like Southwest and Hawaiian, is limited in the range of its narrow-body fleets. When American and United take deliveries of their new 321xlr planes, that will change the Hawaii flight landscape significantly. Those planes are nearly as distance-capable as the hardiest of wide bodies including Hawaiian’s A330 or its upcoming Dreamliner fleets.
It will be interesting to see what happens to airlines serving Hawaii over the next 15 years. What are your predictions?
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The takeover of Hawaiian by Alaska and their relationship with American and One World including Qantas and Japan Airlines is very interesting, use those United Miles now….
WOW!
This is quite some news for a sleepy Sunday morning in Kalaheo! Both carriers have provided good service. I hope the combined company can maintain the customer service that Alaska provides. To be able to call Alaska and get a friendly voice such as “Nicole from Olympia, Washington” rather than a sweet voice from out of the country who cannot always be understood or understand my question.
As a Hawaiian Platinum flyer, I am looking forward to seeing how this merger / take over works out for all of the flyers.
Mahalo for all you do and keeping us informed,
Melissa
Kalaheo, HI
For 15 years our family has relied o Alaska Airlines to get our family from Victoria BC to Lihue to visit Ohana there, we count on the red eye flights to Seattle from Lihue and then the connecting Horizon Air flights from Seattle to Victoria BC.
I hope Alaska can bring back these late night flights to Seattle, they are a popular option for families with kids who can sleep on these long flights home or Canadians that need to make connections the next day without having to book a night in Seattle….which is what I’m facing for travel this June.
On the topice of Alaska, I see that they are late to open up their super saver fares from the West Coast to Kauai this year for summer 2023 travel. I count on this as I use British Airways Avios awards, a portion of which are allocated from Alaska super saver fare seats. No super saver seats = no avios awards availability. I’m usually able to book my summer vacation in January and still waiting, checking every day to see if anything has opened. I am wondering if their battle with Southwest is making them more stingy. I’d love to hear if anyone else knows anything about this specific issue. Please comment if you know the inside scoop.
Hi Linda.
We can concur that availability of Alaska Airlines awards is less than it once was. We do, however, see that among all the airlines though, so it doesn’t seem specific to them at all.
Aloha.
Thank you for the response. I understand this is happening across all airlines. But something dramatic happened from last year to this year. If you have Avios it has gone from award tickets being scanty but available to nothing at all. And there are still lots of travel writers pushing this best use of Avios to fly to the Hawaii from the West Coast when this is not the option it used to be. I just don’t see folks writing about this significant change.
This should lower costs to travelers with this much competition.
Today I will spend more for a flight and let the lowest rate flights left to the complainers. Avoiding stress is money well spent.
I love Hawaiian and hate to say this but Alaska does far more for the Hawaii community than HA does in terms of outreach and philanthropy and for that, am very grateful for their presence here.
I think a HA/AS merge would really be ideal. With AS joining oneworld and growing at such a fast pace, having a strong company like AS purchase HA would be just what they need to become a truly global carrier. They would finally have 787s and other widebodies to serve the asia/south pacific markets and have a true chance at serving the Hawaii neighbor island market and beyond.
There are a lot of people taking morning flights from Boise to Oakland on Southwest and catching connecting SWA flight to Hawaii. Alaska should jump on this and have direct flights from Boise to Hawaii. A lot of people want direct flights from Boise, which is getting bigger and needs more options for Hawaii travelers.
I see Hawaiian losing the most market share out of the Alaska, United, and Southwest battle for Hawaii. Maybe Alaska buys Hawaiian, keeps the Hawaiian name, provides more One World members, marketing opportunities, etc?
Southwest can take losses to continue to expand in Hawaii. Can Hawaiian and Alaska?
Aloha Guys! We loved flying Alaska Air. But then they made the mistake of eliminating flights out of Oakland to Hawaii. By doing so, they’ve abandoned their East Bay Area customers (unless we want to drive 2 hours in heavy traffic to SF or San Jose, Or fly to Seattle and then Hawaii).
I had booked a round-trip to Lihue from San Jose last April for an October trip, and paying extra for premium legroom. 6 weeks before the trip, Alaska cancelled the flights and rebooked us via Seattle adding 8 hours to the travel time. The return was a red eye to Seattle with an 8 hour layover. Needless to say, I cancelled and rebooked on HA. I won’t ever fly on Alaska again..
I loved flying nonstop on Alaska Air from Oakland and San Francisco. Alaska stopped all the non stops from Iakland and most nonstop from SFO. So now I travel on Southwest . It’s a bummer, I have the Alaska air credit card and companion fare , but no longer really use it
Hi Carrie –
We stopped using our Alaska card for that very reason. We only fly them now if we are traveling to Alaska to see family there. And even their schedules for Those flights are a pain and mega expensive.
We used Alaska for a good many years and very much liked the airline. They are timely and their service was good. Then a few years ago they started routing all their flights out of Seattle and that resulted in too many missed flights. So far Southwest has been good with us. We have a professor friend who had a conference up in Portland OR. She likes SW and tries to use them to get to Portland. That was just impossible. SW had something like four connecting flights and it was an all day affair. She went with Alaska with just one flight to get there. If you’re coming out of Northwest, Alaska cannot be beat. A good number of the people who come to Hawaii, live in the Northwest and Alaska is unbeatable for them.
Hilo to Portland and/or SeaTac flight!!
Roundtrip of course!!
Alaska airlines all the way. No way do I enjoy the cattle car open seating of Southwest all the way to the islands. I hope Alaska stays in the market.
Mahalo BOH boyz for this realistic article. Didn’t know about the Mokulele connection. Molokai is now a great idea for me and some savvy visitors. Hope Mome take advantage.
Hi Jim.
Thanks. We appreciate your 400 comments to date!
Aloha.
Alaska is the better and superior choice for travel to and from Hawaii compared to the cattle car operation that is southwest. Alaska has been doing it longer and better when you compare the two airlines. Keep up the great work!
Hawaiian and Alaska should merge and kick Southwest out, us locals would love that!
Speak for yourself. SWA finally made inter-island flights affordable!
Southwest is playing the long game. Look across the country….most of the time they are no longer the low price.
You knock Hawaiian out you’ll see.
Right. Kick them out now so we can start paying $240 round trip between islands asap again, instead of waiting for your imagined long game strategy to take effect! And btw this is really more about being gouged by Hawaiian for the years after Aloha went down. Apparently this forum is packed with people with money to burn or lots of HA workers.
SWA has a lot of money behind them and uses that to force it’s way into a market and then raise the fares over time. They have time and again displayed a lack of local knowledge and disrespect for Hawaii. SWA well represents what has always been an issue here. People from elsewhere try and come here and take what they can at the expense of the people that live here. Operating at a loss inter island for a year or two inter island is not supporting Hawaii. It’s creating unsustainable expectations that hurts Hawaii in the long run.
We loved flying Alaska to HI for both business (me) and pleasure (family). It was very convenient, and we loved the product. However, when they pulled their OAK service, that was it for us. SFO/SJO is just not convenient for the early morning flights that we prefer. Wish they would bring those flights back.
I have flown to Hawaii numerous times on Alaska, mainly to LIH as it’s a direct flight. They have been great! I used to work for HA and always chose the 330 for the extra room, but I’d prefer direct flights over minor comfort differences when flying to the islands… I hope that AS continues to fly direct as it saves so much hassle and allows me to enjoy more island time!
Was surprised a couple years ago flew to hawaii on a hawaiian wide body. When we flew home was an airbus narrow body, quite disappointed. Flight attendant said couldn’t fill plane anymore with other carriers now competing. Since have flown alaska so whole trip one airlines . Sadly these narrow bodies make the 5 plus hour trip fairly unpleasant. Now think twice about traveling to hawaii
Since H A terminal move at LAX, I know we will Not be flying HA( major hassle)
I vote Alaska, I’ve flown them before and nothing bad to say
I have always flown Alaska to
Hawaii. This last trip I flew Hawaiian Airlines, which I will never do again. Their narrow planes are cramped and their service is marginal at best. Nothing beats Alaska to the islands.
Would love to see a Tucson AZ route to Hawaii.
Any news on SWA , American or United offering that service in the future?
We’ve flown Alaska’s first/business class many times. It’s a fantastic option from the West Coast.