An unknown odor aboard a Hawaiian Airlines Los Angeles-to-Honolulu flight Thursday left people feeling sick and seven flight attendants being evaluated after landing. The Hawaiian Airlines Airbus A330 arrived normally with 252 passengers aboard, and no one was taken to a hospital. At this point, we don’t know how many hours remained in the flight when the odor began.
Then later yesterday, the same aircraft was back in service. No cause for the odor has been made public, and the airline has not said what maintenance found before the A330 carried passengers again.
Who became sick on this Hawaiian Airlines flight?
Alaska Flight 803, operated by Hawaiian Airlines, arrived in Honolulu at 12:57 p.m. Thursday. Honolulu EMS and other agencies met the aircraft at Terminal 1 after the odor was reported aboard.
Multiple initial accounts differ in this way. Honolulu EMS said some passengers became ill, with nausea and headaches reported, while Alaska and Hawaiian said seven flight attendants were evaluated and released and that no guests required medical attention.
Both could be accurate if passengers experienced symptoms without requiring treatment, but that isn’t clear. Something in the cabin smelled wrong, people felt sick, and the aircraft was soon to carry another group of passengers later yesterday.
The same aircraft had earlier odor reports.
The aircraft involved Thursday was N375HA. In June 2025, the same A330 returned to Tokyo after a burning-plastic odor was reported on another Honolulu-bound flight. An FAA Service Difficulty Report says maintenance suspected the air-conditioning packs and decontaminated the bleed and pack systems before returning the aircraft to service.
The same records show a 2023 incident when a flight attendant reported an odor near the front of the cabin, and maintenance found and replaced a damaged air duct.
About ten hours after arriving in Honolulu, the same A330 departed for Las Vegas with another load of passengers. No maintenance findings from Thursday have been released publicly, including whether the source of the odor was identified before the aircraft returned to service.
Two Hawaii flights in less than a week.
Thursday’s incident followed another unrelated cabin-air event involving a Hawaii flight only days earlier. Fumes aboard Delta Flight 394 from Maui sent both pilots onto oxygen and sickened passengers before the aircraft diverted to Honolulu, where three women with headaches and nausea were taken to the emergency room.
The good news is that Flight 803 reached Honolulu without a diversion; nobody was hospitalized, and N375HA was back in service last night. If you were on board, please let us know what you experienced.
Lead Photo: © Beat of Hawaii at HNL showing a Hawaiian Airlines A330 aircraft.
By Rob and Jeff, Beat of Hawaii.
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