Aloha Saw This Coming 24 Years Ago. Two Airlines Just Proved Them Right.

Aloha Airlines was ahead of its time in ways the industry still has not caught up to. The routes were just part of it. Burbank in 2002. Orange County, before that. Hawaii from Oakland, San Diego, Sacramento, Reno, Las Vegas, and Vancouver. Aloha was opening secondary West Coast gateways for Hawaii service two decades before these other carriers were willing to do so.

It also saw beyond the mainland, flying from Honolulu to Rarotonga years before that route would return under Hawaiian, then Alaska. But the routes were only one piece of what made Aloha different. The coupon books. The 10-minute pre-flight cutoff. The completely unique way the airline felt when you stepped on board. The way it belonged to Hawaii itself, rather than just flying here.

Aloha was the people’s choice for more than six decades. It was the airline Hawaii residents flew at home, and the one they raved about. Hawaiian carried Hawaii to the world. Aloha was something very different, and the people of Hawaii loved it for exactly that reason.

Burbank to Honolulu service resumes after a 21-year absence.

Yesterday morning, about 130 passengers boarded a 7 a.m. Alaska Airlines flight at Hollywood Burbank Airport headed for Honolulu. The Boeing 737 MAX 8 pushed back early, closing one of the longest gaps in modern Hawaii air service history.

It was the first direct flight on a route that Aloha pioneered in 2002 and was forced to abandon in April 2005 during the bankruptcy that ultimately took the whole airline down three years later. There were Hawaii-themed snacks offered at the gate, island music before boarding, and a photo booth set up for the inaugural, all of it briefly seeming to stand in for something Aloha once did every day as part of who the airline was.

This summer, Southwest launches its own competing service from Burbank to Hawaii. Two airlines are now fighting over the route Aloha had to give up on, in a market Aloha saw before anyone else. For Hawaii readers who still remember Aloha, this is not just a new Hawaii route. It is the return of a route that the airline they loved pioneered 24 years ago. Aloha was right about Burbank. Aloha was right about almost everything. They just could not stay in business long enough to prove it. Neither could Hawaiian.

Alaska called the new BUR-HNL service a big deal.

In this case, that was not corporate overstatement. Robert Watson, Alaska’s Burbank station manager, reminded us that the route had not existed from Burbank for more than 20 years. The airline is operating the flight daily through August 18 using the Boeing 737, with round-trip fares starting around $500. The return flight leaves Honolulu at 12:19 p.m. and arrives in Burbank around 9 p.m., giving Southern California travelers a schedule that avoids much of the LAX grind that Hawaii travelers have complained about for decades.

The timing is on point, too. Burbank’s new terminal opens in October 2026, replacing the airport’s aging 1930s-era facility, and both Alaska and Southwest are clearly vying to establish themselves before the airport enters a new phase. For Hawaii travelers in or near the San Fernando Valley, studio workers in Burbank and Hollywood, and people who long ago decided that LAX was not worth the stress if any other viable option existed, the reopening of the route felt long overdue. Countless BOH readers have asked for this route for years. By the end of yesterday morning’s inaugural departure, the name hanging over much of the event was Aloha Airlines.

Aloha saw Burbank in 2002 and got it right.

Aloha launched service between Burbank and Honolulu in 2002, using its Boeing 737-700 aircraft as part of its aggressive mainland expansion plan. Oakland had already proven there was demand for Hawaii flights outside of, but not far from, the biggest traditional gateways, and Aloha kept building outward from there. Burbank joined Las Vegas, Orange County, Reno, Sacramento, San Diego, and Vancouver as part of an airline strategy that, in hindsight, now looks years ahead of the rest of the industry.

The original Aloha service on this route may have only lasted three years, but the market itself never disappeared or was forgotten. The people who wanted Hawaii service without fighting LAX traffic were there in 2002. Aloha simply identified them before larger and better-run airlines cared enough to try.

In January 2005, the airline announced it would cut service to Burbank-Honolulu, Burbank-Maui, and Vancouver due to its final bankruptcy restructuring. By April 3, 2005, the flights were gone.

Three years later, on March 31, 2008, Aloha Airlines itself disappeared completely. When we wrote about the 20-year gap when Alaska announced the route, the missing piece in most national coverage was the very airline that had already proven the concept worked decades earlier.