Hawaiian Airlines/Prime Air Flights Underway

This has been a big week for Hawaii’s bellwether airline, Hawaiian Airlines. That as it has just had its first run of flights on behalf of Amazon. They are flying from Amazon’s air hub at Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport. In 2019, Amazon began development of that 800,000 sq. ft facility designed to support growing air cargo requirements. Amazon said that “the centrally located hub is ideally situated to more closely connect us to customers all across the country.” And Amazon’s airline of choice became none other than Hawaiian Airlines.

Destination: San Bernardino International Airport, Amazon west coast hub facility.

Hawaiian Airlines is operating a fleet of ten converted Airbus 330-300 freighters for Amazon. The company has been doing familiarization and training at San Bernardino for some time.

When you get your next prime delivery – think of Hawaiian Airlines.

Amazon will use the ten new planes and these facilities as part of its prime delivery service. Amazon Prime Air has a total fleet of over 100 planes.

Hawaiian Airlines has a decade of A330 experience and crew.

The A330-200, very similar to and compatible with these planes, have been Hawaiian’s mainstay for nearly a decade. Five years ago they were joined by their narrowbody fleet of more problematic yet desirable A321neo planes. Hawaiian Air was tapped for the job in large part based on that extensive experience.

Hawaiian is hiring 160 pilots to augment their existing crews. Crews are largely dedicated either to passenger flights on Hawaiian or to freight flights for Amazon. Hawaiian is also maintaining this Amazon fleet, both themselves, and for more in depth maintenance, through their agreement with Singapore Airlines maintenance based in the Philippines.

Expansion at Hawaiian comes with Amazon deal and their own Dreamliners.

Hawaiian Airlines two new fleets to manage. First this one on behalf of Amazon, and second, the soon to be delivered, and long-delayed Hawaiian Airlines Boeing 789 Dreamliner fleet. That first Dreamliner plane to our knowledge is still at Paine Field near Seattle. It will next arrive in Honolulu, you’ll see it parked nearby the Hawaiian terminal. After that, it will move into training followed by west coast Hawaiian Airlines Dreamliner flights. Later it will fly both internationally and to New York. A total fleet of 12 of these planes is expected

Hawaiian Airlines’ Amazon plane “Momentum” was stationed at Honolulu.

In our own photo above, the plane was parked for some time at Honolulu Airport. That A330-300, with the Prime Air Amazon logo, arrived at Honolulu Airport early in July. The plane is named “Momentum.” As will happen with the upcoming Dreamliner that is arriving, the Amazon was parked nearby the Hawaiian Air terminal at HNL during its Hawaii familiarization and maintenance.