After months of various integration issues and reported missteps, Alaska Airlines may have finally gotten Hawaii and Hawaiian Airlines right. It took public backlash, a pile of confused travelers, and one unfortunate viral surfboard incident, but the airline that tangled Hawaiian’s loyalty transition and erased its callsign just reversed one of its most visible cultural stumbles. Surfboards, at long last, are back where they belong.
The joint Hawaiian-Alaska announcement applies to both airlines’ flights starting this month.
We wrote about this mess in September when Hawaiian Airlines’ travelers started being turned away with the same surfboards they’d checked for years. Readers shared stories of agents measuring bags, managers disagreeing about rules, and passengers being forced to leave their prized boards behind.
It was not just about baggage. It was about trust and whether Alaska understood that in Hawaii, a surfboard is not merely cargo. It is culture. It carries lineage, identity, and the rhythm of life here, which is why this change matters far beyond the check-in counter.
The surfboard fix, finally.
The new surfboard policy now feels more Hawaiian than Alaska corporate. Bags up to ten feet five inches long and fifty pounds can fly as standard checked baggage. Travelers can pack multiple boards in one bag.
The only exception is on smaller E175 regional jets, where the limit is reduced to 9 feet 7 inches. Gone is the confusing 115 linear inches rule that no one seemed to interpret precisely the same way. This time, it is simply length and weight, exactly what surfers have been asking for.
This update feels like more than airline logistics. It nods to the islands’ deep connection to surfing and what it represents. This change does not just fix a policy, it feels like it fixes an attitude.
Surfboards are treated as standard checked baggage. This means they’re subject to the same fees as regular checked bags.
A rare moment of listening.
What stands out is not just the numbers, but rather the tone. The announcement mentioned Hawaii directly and acknowledged that the airline wanted to get it right. That kind of language has at times felt missing since the merger began. For once, Alaska sounded less like a corporate memo and more like an airline learning to hear from its new home.
It has been a rough start. The loyalty switch left members stranded in a fog of broken messages and missing benefits. The removal of the 95-year-old Hawaiian callsign felt like erasing a voice that meant something. Every change so far has been a chance for Alaska to better understand what Hawaiian travelers value most.
What the surfboard policy change could mean.
Perhaps this slight shift actually signals something more significant. At least that’s the hope. Alaska has been under pressure to show it can learn from Hawaiian instead of remaking it. The surfboard reversal might be the first sign that feedback, both public and persistent, can actually move the Seattle company. It serves as a reminder that travelers still hold power when they speak up and that cultural understanding begins with such details.
For now, we will give credit where it is due. After a string of marked stumbles, this is a correction that feels earned. Surfboards are finally welcome again as regular baggage, and maybe, just maybe, so will a bit more of Hawaiian’s old spirit.
Have you tried checking a surfboard yet, since the change? Share your experience. Did it go smoothly, or is this still a work in progress?
Lead Photo Credit: Beat of Hawaii at Wailea, Maui.
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Great recovery and a good start. Now, they just need to be reasonable about interisland pricing. I think if they don’t get that right now and fixed – SWA has an opportunity to eat their lunch. The lounge commitment is the show over the bow.
The surfboard new policy is a step in the right direction.
I hope, but have no faith, that Alaska will also put the “HA” call sign back into play. It’s disheartening to take a flight on our beloved Hawaiian jets and be designated with the Alaska calk sign. Will be writing to Alaska about this, but know it’s most likely a futile effort.
Any merger has growing pains, and these have been especially painful. But Alaska has consistently had the best loyalty program, customer satisfaction, and on-time performance of the major carriers. I don’t think any other acquiring airline would have retained the Hawaiian brand, whose aloha spirit had frankly been slipping away for years. If this is the new Hawaiian CEO’s first order of business, I suspect her focus will be making quality-of-life adjustments to maintain HA’s market share and status as the islands’ flagship carrier. Not every change has been perfectly beneficial for everyone but I’m remaining optimistic
“Months of missteps”?
It’s not surprising in any airline merger that there are some bumps at the operational level as employees get used to new policies.
That’s not a “misstep.”
At the airport, when loading cargo, “culture” doesn’t matter a whit. Size and weight is all that matters.
HA’s A321’s are slightly wider than 737’s which means HA has a little more slack in handling a piece like a surfboard. An airport agent may go weeks or even months without ever seeing a surfboard, so it’s not at all surprising that an AS agent in SAN might not understand that a customer who shows up with a surfboard and has been flying HA all along is surprised that he can’t check his board because it is indeed oversized by AS’s standards.
Eventually, when all service to Hawaii is on HA A321’s and A330’s, this will not be an issue.
You missed the point of the story completely. It was Hawaiian who completely screwed up surfboard policy by not allowing 10′ boards, a size favored by many amateur and professional surfers. This is Alaska stepping in and cleaning up the chaos created by an out-of-touch Hawaiian Airlines management team who could never get out of their own way.
” 10′ boards, a size favored by many amateur and professional surfers” Lol, obviously u don’t surf, and if u do it’s definitely in HI.
Not new problems. Several years ago I was trying to find an airline that would accommodate a surfboard. I was flying back from Idaho where I was attending my brother’s funeral. I was given his surfboards and wanted to bring them back to Southern California. I had to leave them behind.