Hawaiian Airlines can’t seem to catch a break regarding customer service and various technology-related problems. We were first alerted to the problem yesterday when Steph commented:
“Computer issues (or audit issues?) caused check-in delays, and all planes were grounded for an estimated 3+ hours (no telling if this will be longer at the time this comment is posted).
Customer service/gate agents made no efforts to make timely announcements, resulting in curious passengers filing at the gate to ask questions. Instead of making a clear announcement, airline staff rudely snapped at everyone for asking the same question and closed off access to the gate. Only then was a vague announcement made throughout the entire airport (Kona).
Our day is completely wasted due to this, and Hawaiian Airlines needs to take responsibility for the cost they’ve caused their customer to incur.”
Other online comments included, “Don’t trust Hawaiian Airlines. My son is right now stuck at an Oahu terminal, supposed to leave at 10:30, got lied to for several hours as to why the delay, now 4 other Hawaiian flights delayed and now has to stand in a line with over 60 people ahead of him either to be lied to some more or finally put on another airline to get home. I called Hawaiian to see how they are going to compensate…. We’ll never fly Hawaiian again. Getting rid of all c c.”
We’ve heard from other people too, personally and in things too vicious to publish. One such individual started a now-deleted Facebook post with, “F!*! Hawaiian Airlines.” His experience was similar to the other comments above. A regular customer of Hawaiian Airlines, he became disgruntled with the lack of transparency. Then he waited many hours to get on a plane after returning to the islands from New York.
Friday, Hawaiian Airlines canceled 46 flights, while 259 were delayed.
Flight cancellations and delays quickly mounted on Friday after first appearing late on Thursday. It’s too early to know how Saturday will pan out regarding the resumption of normal operations.
- Honolulu had 22 Hawaiian Airlines flights canceled and 123 delayed.
- Maui had 9 Hawaiian Airlines flights canceled and 55 delayed.
- Kauai had 6 Hawaiian Airlines flights canceled and 35 delayed.
- Kona had 7 Hawaiian Airlines flights canceled and 27 delayed.
- Hilo had 2 Hawaiian Airlines flights canceled and 19 delayed.
What does Hawaiian Airlines say caused yesterday’s meltdown, the second in recent days?
Hawaiian said DRFortress, a third-party vendor, had a “power blip” yesterday that caused incredible delays and other problems. It was reportedly during that vendor’s scheduled maintenance that the internet outage inexplicably occurred. These issues impacted several other companies, including Hawaii Pacific Health. They indicated they had planned alternate technology for problems like this that allowed them to continue operations.
In the case of Hawaiian Airlines, it sounds like there was a single point of failure and no adequate alternatives to allow the airline to continue operating during the third-party’s service outage. As a result, Hawaiian Airlines had an extraordinary virtual ground stop in effect from 9 AM for at least three hours. But that wasn’t the end of it.
Flights were also diverted, including multiple Maui-bound flights that had to go to Honolulu Airport instead.
Hawaii Airlines said that “About 9 a.m. (Friday) we experienced a temporary internet outage in Hawaii due to a power disruption at our third-party data vendor during scheduled maintenance. The outage, impacting our Hawaii systems and headquarters, has been resolved, but we are experiencing flight delays as a result of the temporary outage. We’re working with affected guests and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.”
Hawaiian quickly pointed out that there was no relationship between yesterday and the horrible reservation system upgrade issues that have haunted it and its customers for weeks already. In that occurrence, more than 800 flights were delayed. It was far more severe and long-lasting since visitors reported still having problems booking reservations online using the Hawaiian Airlines app.
Who is DRFortress anyway?
The vendor, DRFortress, says it provides “Comprehensive Data Center Solutions for Your Mission-Critical IT Systems.
DRFortress is the largest and the only carrier-neutral data center and cloud marketplace operating in Hawaii. Experience the operational reliability, scalability, and security that DRFortress provides for all your mission-critical IT systems.” The company has experienced huge growth based on demand for its services.
The company website also said it offers “services designed to provide 100% uptime.”
BOH: For us, however, the issue isn’t their lack of ability to provide 100% uptime as their website suggests, but Hawaiian Airlines’ reliance on that assurance without necessary redundancy, which resulted in the untold loss of money and, more importantly, customer goodwill.
Did you get stuck in the meltdown?
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What a mess.
The HAL website has also devolved into a much poorer version of itself. No more monthly calendar of fares. No scrolling through the weekly list of fares, you have to modify search. Miles award quotes are limited to a single day. The website also doesn’t remember your last search any more, you have to start fresh. Pretty sad.
Been flying Hawaiian for over 30 years but have already flown on other carriers for various reasons including HAL going way downhill from what it was. Cost cutting can only go so far until it causes a collapse.
I really feel sorry for the inter-island travelers. At least they have a choice now with SW.
Hawaiian Airlines is still DaKine! You forget Frank DeLima used to make fun of island time Hawaiian and Aloha airlines?!! HA, against all odds, has become one of the top airlines in the world in the last decade in customer service and on time flights. You forget, this is an island nation! My wife is getting on her plane to HNL right now, she waits an extra hour to go home. No Big Deal! Aloha.
What!! One of the Top airlines?? Doesn’t even have a contingency plan like other companies do!
Only reason still in existence has a captive customer base.
On Friday May 11, 2023
I had a flight out from Kona – Honolulu
@ 6pm and arrived Honolulu @ 6:30m
Well , my flight was cancelled as I waited till almost midnight. cause the last fight from. Honolulu to Kona came in, I as the visitor guess center. She said that’s the last flight. Oh I know the last flight was @ 7:30 hours pm for those who waited 1:00pm – 6: 20 pm . So I got a flight 0n Saturday @ 12:30 noon but that flight never leave the ground till 4:30 pm . We sat in the aircraft 41/2 hrs. We arrive Honolulu @ 5 pm .! what a Mother’s Day weekend
Why can’t these airlines get IT “right”? SWA’s issues were really an IT meltdown due to the fact that they haven’t invested properly in those systems for years. Hawaiian, on the other hand, made an investment, and then botched the rollout. This latest one where the outsourced data center had a “power blip” that shut down all of the servers wasn’t Hawaiian’s fault directly (note that DRFortress is the outsourcer of choice in Hawaii), but, again, this was an IT infrastructure architecture/design choice that Hawaiian IT made, so they certainly bear some responsibility. HIT decided to put all their eggs in the DRFortress basket, and, well, you see what happens when you do that. Experienced IT DR/BC folks know better, so what happened?
a proper DR and HA systems has to be tested regularly to make sure it’s up and running in a reasonable of time. 3 Hours outage due to a DRs’s power outage is outrageous to be honest specially this is the DR company.
DR (Disaster Recovery) and BC (Business Continuity) along with Backups, etc. is what I do for a living. I don’t have enough info on exactly what the design the Hawaiian is using for DR and BC looks like, but clearly, it’s insufficient. Critical systems like the ones that went down preventing the scheduling of flight should be both local redundant and additional redundancy to a separate data center. Sure looks like this wasn’t the case here since, again, failover between these redundant systems for critical systems should be measured in seconds/minutes and in some case, for VERY critical systems it can even by zero. All this costs money and company’s tend to not want to spend on this until they have a problem.
The management needs to fired and sued in civil court. There is no excuse for their incompetence.
As many people said , no transparency, no information. I have been trying for 3 days to find any information about my missing bags after flying to Australia. The department of transportation need a full investigation and fines levied against the management and company!!
Looks like DRFortress has overplayed their operations. And once again the public suffers.
We were stuck at OGG flight #265
We landed in HNL after 230a- 12+ hours late- car rental closed- stuck had to pay crazy high prices for Uber lost entire day of vacation- missed reservations.
It was chaos, stood in lines for 5 hours to talk to agents to be told- i knew more then they did. Updates were 2 hours delayed throughout the day. It was the worse travel day!
Tried calling on hold more then 90 mins, tried using their message- no one responded- totally all left to fend for ourselves.
My flight was scheduled for Sat 8a SAN – HNL – OGG. I checked in as usual. Around 10:30 p on Friday got a text saying flight delayed to 9:30 am. That would make us miss our connection, so I waited 1.5 hours on the phone to speak with an agent who moved us to the next flight, but didn’t do it properly. We had paid cash for our tickets and upgraded with miles. Lesson Learned – we started our check-in 2 hrs in advance and at the end they we actually holding the plane for us and our luggage! As we attempted to check in the couldn’t complete the check in for the luggage since the agent on Friday didn’t cancel the first flight properly … it goes on and on – and finally I just said let me go to HNL and I’ll deal with it when I get there.
Strange JW, BD, MG, DR, LB, ER not rushing to blame Southwest this time.
I agree with Brian A, ” You rich, Don’t give a cr** about how much you pay for
airfare? Fly HA.”
New slogan for HA-You’ll get somewhere, sometime.
Exactly my sentiment. When it was Southwest there were so many coimments about using HA instead of SWA. All the comments made about HA being a local company and SWA was hellbent on driving them out of business. SWA not understanding the culture of Hawaii.
There have been some comments about how bad HA is now, but nothing like the comments made in December.
I’m torn, because we mostly fly HA from SoCal to HNL. Have been checking airfares and HA just jumped from $1700+ to $2400+ SWA is looking good for our September trip there.
No company is perfect, so I tend to overlook most of the pro HA, anti SWA comments made just a few months ago. But, people have to choose what’s best for them. No need to bash the other guys. Aloha
Hawaiian Airlines Kona Gate Agents have always been aloof and rude. No evidence of “aloha” in Kona!
True
Hawaiian Airlines issued an apology yesterday, but they clearly didn’t handle this situation well!
Unless they totally collapse and end up bankrupt, what history shows us is that in order to recover and regain lost customers the airlines will have solve these recurring problems
significantly improve customer service in order to stay in business.
We will see what happens?
Family vacation with kids and grandchildren. All were encouraged to get Hawaiian CC to get the miles. We talked up Hawaiian Air as the best experience. Well not so much. Everyone had cancellations & delays. Back to Southwest & cancel the Hawaiian CCs. Thanks.
I flew on Saturday morning. They sent emails around 1am of flight delays and cancellations. Of course I wasn’t awake to check my email. After lots of waiting, I finally arrived home on Kauai to wait 2 more hours for some of my checked baggage. Lihue airport had so much baggage including a wheelchair from Friday and Saturday flights. I’m a long time customer and will continue to fly Hawaiian, but will be looking at other options. At this point there is no reason to maintain loyalty to an airline that doesn’t value its customers.
It is infuriating that Hawaiian and the rest of the airlines continue to cause major problems for travelers and potentially cost customers lots money or worse. Some of these travelers, I assume were traveling inter-island for medical care, yet there is little to no compensation for those affected and the airline says “Oops, so sorry for the inconvenience” and calls it a day. Where is Pete Buttigieg? His silence is deafening. Why is he not holding these airline’s feet to the fire? Without serious consequences, there is no incentive for the airlines to compensate or to make adjustments in their operations so that these events no longer occur.
I have requested full refund of the flight and of the costs of a missed night in KOA, a missed day of prepaid rental car. I have also asked for compensation for not offering me neither a hotel night nor a warm dinner, leaving me and my wife for a full night with just biscuits and water.
I urge you all to flood Hawaiian with similar requests
Hawaiian air as a big airline company should have some kind is back up system to Avoid this type of disruption. May 12 shut down was pretty bad. It took Hawaiian 6 hours to finally put 3 Hilo flights on a A-320 plane to get as much passenger to Hilo. Also Hawaiian had issues getting pilots and flight crews to fly on certain routes. Hawaiian should learn from this really good so it doesn’t happen again.
It was hell. No communication whatsoever.
My worst vacation ever. First amd last time flying Hawaiian Airlines.
I’m curious
Could it have been some sort of cyber attack? We may never know
somebody needs to go to prison, hundreds left stranded in Honolulu, no explanation just”we can get you on a flight tomorrow night”. thank you Southwest for getting me home to Hilo❤️
The same people always claiming “We will never fly XX again!” Are the same folks that will book the same company later on. It’s an insignificant statement. The difference between this and SWA’s IT meltdown is that HAL’s one only lasted a few hours and recovered very quickly.
What flavor is the KoolAid you’re drinkin?
Bringing SWA into the discussion adds nothing to the loss Hawaiian Airlines passengers suffered.
Having been through both melt downs I will never fly HA again. It was my first time and last.
Again an insignificant statement. The industry and its customers evolve as they come and go. “XX was a great experience!” “Never flying XX again!”. The cycle continues….
The lack of communication was one of the main complaints I heard on Friday. I was on the 11:40 flight from OGG to LAX. There was no gate personnel, no announcements (other than a gate change). After almost four hours , I finally received a text that the flight was canceled. You can imagine the line for folks who needed accommodations. Thankfully, I had another night for my timeshare and Ubered back to the Nanea. Biggest mess I have seen and have been coming to Maui since 2008! Back to Delta!
I am not sure what you mean by insignificant. Were you caught up in any of these meltdowns? Older people, people with disabilities, cranky babies and cranky people. I can tell you without a doubt that I will never fly Hawaiian again. I have always flown Delta with this one exception. When I was delayed with Delta on one of my trips, they provided us with snacks and water And kept us updated. I don’t fault Hawaiian for the internet issues. However, their communication was an F-….Crickets! I feel sorry for those folks who have to depend on this airline for inter-island travel. I do not!
Wife was stuck in HNL for 14h coming from another HA Tokyo redeye flight. Total chaos. Employees left clueless, randomly putting passengers on replacement flights, regardless of travel history. Entire flights disappeared from view.
BOH, as a lifelong enterprise software professional I feel you hit the mark on your comment regarding HA’s total reliance on a data center provider like DRFortress. Exactly.
HA leadership, consider setting up a skunk works type operation outside your IT org to rethink your entire IT stack, approach, and historically grown patchwork, on a conceptual level and from the ground up. Nothing else might work here.
We were in the mess yesterday (Fri) on Maui trying to get back to Oakland. They finally canceled our 1:00 pm flight, at 9:00 pm!! It took them another hour to get our bags to the baggage carousel, although they said the bags had been offloaded an hour prior for “weight rebalancing.” We were led to several times but I can’t blame the gate agents because it’s not their fault. Had the mgmt told us the truth we may have been able to get home the same day on another carrier. So here we sit at Southwest on Saturday. It’s going to cost them a lot in rental car fees as well refunding today’s flight and half of our original trip.
Flying from Lihue to Honolulu and then onto Sacramento today on Southwest. Everything is running smoothly on Southwest. I did see many delays and one cancellation on the boards in Lihue for Hawaiian. Happy I’m a longtime Southwest customer for many reasons.
So we are sitting in Maui airport the Sat after Fridays mess. Our flight has been delayed it states for 2 hours of now. The bag drop off and getting boarding passes also so disorganized. And the kiosks to check in are not even working. HA used to great, now just another company who has lost its way
We have been at OGG since 9:30a, moved from gate to gate, delayed and now cancelled, standing in another line that is not moving for rebooking, etc. I understand things happen but Hawaiian Airlines guest services is appalling Now in this line for 4 hours, no movement., no water, no snacks, people are almost passing out. Left airport at 8:30p, been at the airport for nearly 12 hours with very little communication from Hawaiian Airline staff. Eventually, told no more vouchers for hotels, food etc. Had a very difficult time finding a hotel. Finally, found one at 9p.
Rerouted for flights today via telephone agent only to find out we have no seats. 2 hours spent on phone trying to sort this out in the middle of the night to no avail.
We are trying to get back to Ontario California. We were lied to many times yesterday before the flight was cancelled. There was very little communication to the passengers. We were flown to Maui this morning and our connecting flight to Long Beach has already been delayed 2 hours. This is our first time to Hawaii and probably our last because of Hawaiian Airlines. The agents and crews have been helpful and wonderful but whoever is in charge is doing an awful job.
I voiced an opinion that there might be something else going on here other than just ineptitude on a commercial basis concerning HA. It just seems all of a sudden HA is experiencing a lot of *screw ups*. What seems a little different are the reports of airline employees not putting a good fave on this with being rude etc. Why now? Didn’t HA have an almost mythic reputation for aloha and all the good stuff Hawaii is? Are there new CEOs or corporate leadership now. Why this change? Mahalo for all you guys do in keeping those people who want to know informed.
Ok folks,
You’re fortunate enough to be there, myself+ also, Considering the times we live in, You go anywhere, knowingly plan for delays, period.
Make the best of it as these may be the best days you’ll ever see,….
I was a Lihue last night. Flight 314 to Honolulu. My flight was supposed to leave at 327 pm. By this time I got to the airport Hawaiian was fully aware flights were delayed. I got no message. Actually they never said anything about my flight the entire night, neither via text/email, nor over airport announcements. It’s like all the Hawaiian representatives ran and hid. Southwest Airlines brought in a plane from Honolulu to help people get to UH graduation and saved the day. At least 5 southwest staff members rapidly booked hundreds of people and I got to my destination by nightfall. There is no way to contact Hawaiian to get a refund, hold times are several hours long.
My name is Lucio Gussetti. I flew out with my wife of jfk on May 12, direct to HNL on HA51. As we landed in HNL it was chaos. Our connecting flight to Kona was inexistent on the screen. Then it appeared with no indications of delay. Then it was cancelled. I received a message of rerouting on another flight at 8:50 pm. I lined for hours to get a new boarding pass. When it was issued I was in STBY, ridiculous. I complained and was pushed back. Then also the 8:50was cancelled. By that time it was past 10:15 pm, no vouchers for hotels available, no hot food, just water. We camped on the floor.
We were eventually squeezed into a 8:05 am flight, 16 hours delay.
Ground personnel was constantly overwhelmed, no real time info. Sheer incompetence.
Sounds like they’re stuck in an old vacuum. No competition! Maybe they need a reliable business internet provider, like Starlink Business.
It’s that checkerboard theory.
There’s dirt over the entire board, and each department is given a broom to clean their square, but no dirt ever leaves the board!
Been a longtime Hawaiian Miles Cardholder. A week ago I was trying to make a reservation to fly from Portland to Lihue. I had an expiring $100 companion discount.
The website wouldn’t let me use my companion discount. I called the 1 800 support number
but no help. Tried the online chat, no one even responded. I filled out their online complaint form and was told that I would have to make another reservation in the future
in order to use my expiring companion discount which means that I will end up losing my companion discount!
The big picture here is that Hawaiian Airlines is struggling financially due to the fare war with Southwest. It’s fairly obvious that they are cutting costs everywhere which
really hurts customer service.
Hawaiian Air screwed up an entire day of travel last week. Flying back from Bali to Maui, I had a ticket from Sydney to Maui thru Honolulu on HA. Had included a day to explore Sydney where I’d never been. Instead I spent the morning on 2 endless stressful phone calls to HA as they insisted my ticket (purchased on Kiwi.com) was not valid, even though I’d been in touch with HA many times since its purchase, for seat upgrade and other details. I ended up going out to the Sydney airport 6 hours early, where they finally they straightened it out at the counter, involving another 45 minutes. They never apologized. Flight delayed an hour and they were negligent in updating us on details. They ruined my day in Sydney.
Be Aware,Use your Airmiles now.
Bank of Hawaii is in trouble, BOH stock has fallen from $80 to $33 and fell 25 percent just this week.
Your Hawaiian Airlines Mastercard Airmiles are not insured and will likely be gone if BOH defaults.
After we sat on the plane in Kona for one hour and I knew it would be impossible to make my doctor appointment in Honolulu. I asked if I could leave the plane as there was no point in going to Oahu, they refused. I went back to my seat for another hour and a half. Flight attendants were laughing and joking with each other, all smiles. Cockpit crew occasionally made up an estimated time when we would take off only for that time to expire. When they finally allowed us to get off the plane the staff on the ground were as rude as could be, barking at us if we asked any question, giving us no clue as to how to proceed. I even asked an employee of Alaska if they knew anything due to the hostility we were getting from Hawaiian Airlines employees.
I love your factual statistics. 35 flights delayed in Kauai. Really? That’s fascinating considering that is somewhere near 2 times the number of flights they operate. (Lmao).
I fly regularly for medical appointments and customer service has deteriorated in recent months and now I can count on Hnl. ground delays from understaffing by both the airport and the airline. We always have to wait at the gate while Hawaiian tries to scrape together enough rampers and gate agents to unload the plane. Over many years, I have needed to explain to out of staters on many occasions that what they are experiencing is a result of no competition. At Hawaiian “we don’t care because we do have to” is the modus operandi.
Hi Brent.
Delays include both arrivals and departures and the information is completely accurate.
Aloha.
We flew Hawaiian May 1- May 8 from LAX to Lihue. No problems whatsoever. The Hawaiian agents at LAX actually were out at the kiosks helping anyone that had a issue. We of course gave ourselves plenty of time. We always fly Hawaiian and luckily never encountered any problems.
Thanks BOH for reporting on Hawaiian and DRFortress. I flew HNL to SFO on 5/09. Was worried about a cancellation, but fortunately encountered only a departure delay of about an hour. It was not until 15 minutes after the posted boarding time that gate agents announced delayed boarding to the milling crowd. Delay was to wait for arrival of additional cabin crew. Indeed Hawaiian could have improved its communication. Also I did not receive the usual email asking me to participate in a post flight survey.
I have been using Hawaiian airlines almost exclusively for the past 10 years, most of times it has been a pleasant experience. I found it better than the other airlines I have used. But since October of last year I have had nothing but problems. 11 hours delay in October and lost luggage and delays in November. And I had a very difficult time booking my June 23 flight. I booked my flight got a confirmation number but no-receipt. When I tried to get my receipt online they said I hadn’t booked a flight that started a 4 hour journey on line to straiten out. I am not sure I will use Hawaiian airlines in the fall .
Can’t blame the customers reactions but that was in no way HA’s fault. It was a third party data server that effected multiple businesses in Hawaii, Queens Medical Center, Bank of Hawaii among others. With all the advantages of HA being a local carrier benefiting the state, this time being local caught them out.