Hawaiian Airlines will eliminate three more routes this November: Boston, Massachusetts; Fukuoka, Japan; and Incheon, South Korea. This is becoming a steady retreat from both long-haul and Asia Pacific flying. The Boston route is the longest nonstop flight within the United States, spanning some 5,000 miles.
These changes follow Hawaiian’s earlier exit from Austin, Texas, and Orlando, Florida, signaling a broader network pullback under Alaska Airlines’ new ownership. For travelers, the message is clear: Hawaiian’s route map is being remade, and not always in the direction many had hoped or expected.
From Boston to Asia: a strategic reversal on three routes.
Boston service began in 2019 and quickly became a marquee route, connecting New England with Hawaii in one ultra-long-haul hop. Hawaiian took pride in that distinction, even as competition from Delta’s short-lived entry into the same market put pressure on fares.
When Delta pulled out earlier this year, we noted that “the long-term future of the HNL-BOS connection will depend on how the route is adapted under Alaska Airlines’ ownership.” Clearly, that did not work.
The final Boston–Honolulu flight will operate on November 19, alongside the final Fukuoka service on the same day.
Incheon (South Korea) flights end November 21, closing the chapter on more than 14 years of service to Seoul. Alaska will take over that route from Seattle, starting on September 12.
Weak Asia Pacific Demand Persists.
Hawaiian pointed to “soft post-pandemic travel demand from Asia” as the driving factor for cutting both Incheon and Fukuoka. That weakness is not new, and the withdrawal is not unexpected. We have been reporting for months that Hawaii’s Asia rebound has lagged far behind North America’s.
Korean visitor counts remain sharply down from pre-pandemic peaks, while Japanese arrivals are still at less than half the 2019 levels.
By stepping back from these markets, Hawaiian is signaling that near-term Asia recovery is not enough to support many wide-body flights from Honolulu. That raises a bigger question about what role Asia Pacific will play in Hawaiian’s future network, and how many of the airline’s 24 Airbus A330s will remain in Hawaiian colors versus being shifted to Alaska’s new livery.
Where Those Planes Are Going Instead.
The A330 aircraft freed up by the cancellations will be redeployed to destinations with strong demand. Honolulu to Sydney will increase from five weekly flights to daily service on a very brief basis, between December 18 and January 31.
Honolulu to Papeete is scheduled to increase from one to two weekly flights starting in April, but as of now, schedules show the route continuing only once a week on Saturdays.
Honolulu to Los Angeles will add a fifth daily flight in peak seasons from November 21 to December 1 and from December 19 to January 6. Honolulu to Seattle will add a fourth daily flight from late November to mid-April.
Even in the most popular mainland markets, not all extra flights will be A330 wide-body aircraft. For example, between Los Angeles and Honolulu, the holiday schedule features a mix of three daily Airbus A330 wide-body aircraft and two daily Airbus A321neo narrow-body aircraft, with some variation by day. This same pattern is already in the schedule through June 2026.
Seattle will continue to operate a mix of Boeing 787, Airbus A330, and Airbus A321neo aircraft for now. But as Alaska’s Seattle-based 787 operations and base grow, by summer 2026 HNL–SEA is expected (per their published schedule) to drop to mostly one daily 787, with the rest of the flights operated by other aircraft types. That will free up even more wide-body aircraft, which are not strictly needed for traffic on that route.
Alaska’s DOT commitments in focus.
When Alaska Airlines won U.S. Department of Transportation approval to acquire Hawaiian last year, it came with binding conditions lasting six years, through 2030. These were designed to protect both travelers and Hawaii’s air service. They included preserving key routes to and from Hawaii, and keeping interisland service intact, among other things.
Now, with Boston, Fukuoka, and Incheon gone, Hawaiian’s Asia network is significantly reduced. Its long-haul international focus is shifting more toward the South Pacific, with service continuing to Sydney, Papeete, Rarotonga American Samoa, and seasonally, Auckland. The question is to what degree Alaska can fulfill the spirit of its DOT commitments while steadily reshaping Hawaiian’s long-haul footprint. The official answer from the airline is that “no seats are leaving Hawaii” because planes are being reassigned to stronger markets. The reality is that connectivity is narrowing, and the network profile of the Hawaiian brand is changing fast.
A narrower network, a different brand.
Hawaiian’s original selling point was its distinct Hawaii-first identity and its long-reach routes that brought the islands closer to faraway markets. The Alaska era appears to be reshaping that into a more conventional West Coast to Hawaii operation, with some international outliers remaining.
Pullbacks from Boston and Asia, along with the growing use of narrow-bodies on trunk routes like LAX and SEA, make Hawaiian less dependent on the A330 fleet. That could accelerate and change cabin retrofit decisions, and ultimately the speed with which Alaska repaints more Hawaiian planes into its own colors.
What this means for Hawaii travelers.
If you are booked on any of the three discontinued routes after November 19 or 21, you will be offered the option to rebook on alternative flights or receive a full refund. But the bigger story is that Hawaii’s direct connectivity is undeniably shrinking, and some of its most distinctive, if not most popular, nonstop options are disappearing.
For travelers in New England or Asia, getting to Hawaii will soon mean at least one connection. And for Hawaii residents, the days of boarding a flight in Honolulu and stepping off hours later in Boston, Seoul, or Fukuoka with no layovers are numbered.
As Hawaiian focuses on “where we are seeing strength,” the question becomes: strength for whom? The answer, for now, is destinations that align with Alaska’s broader network strategy, which may not always coincide with Hawaii’s unique travel needs.
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How disappointing – I’ve been flying BOS to HNL at least 4 times per year, ever since Hawai’ian opened this route 5 (?) years ago. I don’t believe the official reason that the route is underperforming. These flights are always full to capacity. Now that Delta has discontinued its seasonal BOS to HNL route, and Hawai’ian no longer serves BOS, we are back to layovers, making the trip so much longer. Alaska only offers on daily flight west with a stopover in Seattle. The return flight is on American. Really? Who would like the business of New Englanders eager to visit and do business in Hawai’i?
Considering Delta tried and couldn’t make it work, no one wants the route. Maybe that’s telling. Delta has a hub in Boston and they are not intersted. Alaska has a hub in Honolulu and they are not interested. That’s telling the route is not the best use of the aircraft
No idea what you are talking about on the return flight. Random days in the new year put layovers from HNL to Boston thru Seattle, Portland, San Diego.
I thoroughly blame the former leadership of Hawaiian who let the islands and the people of Hawaii down. They weren’t strong enough or smart enough or even courageous enough. At least they got their parachute payments though.
I just booked a spring trip from Boston a month ago along with my accommodations. Hawaiian should have paused booking knowing full well this was coming. And with no partner airlines a connection flight isn’t even an option. I’m so disappointed and frustrated with the response too. Hawaiian said there would be emails in a week. Why weren’t the backup plans ready before the announcement?!? And it was going to be my 1st time flying 1st class thanks to a mileage points upgrade. Very sad.
They did pause booking, permanently, as soon as they figured out all the details about notifying Boston and figuring out about ending their lease and contracts with suppliers and how soon that could be done.
You’re saying they should have left the flight in the schedule, but not allow it to be booked?
How confusing would that be?
“Suspension” of “underperforming” routes is a curious explanation. With one exception, the BOS flight was packed the many times I flew it. Of course, that’s only anecdotal evidence of performance.
More curious is that Alaska bought Hawaiian just to get its widebodies, instead of buying its own. I guess they got the routes, too, because they are beefing up the South bound routes, at least seasonally. But that seems like an afterthought, to me.
I think it’s a two-part thing. Alaska wanted the resources to push back against Delta in Seattle and Hawaiian had under-utilized widebodies, so it worked out for both airlines.
Truly truly tragic what Alaska Airlines has done to this legacy carrier. I’ve saved 500000 miles on Hawaiian in order to take my whole family there in style wide body Leihoku Suites but alas that can’t happen unless you fly from Seattle. A 10 or 12 hr direct flight from East Coast to HNL in lie flat style IS Very Different from a connecting flight with ratchety recliners for 12 hrs. What a waste thanks to Alaska Airlines. Their “1st Class” service and hospitality sucks. I’ll be liquidating those miles through a partner airline to fly elsewhere neither airline serves. Sigh….
Hawaiian Airlines? Only in name, too bad.
Again, whatever Hawaiian Airlines was doing, it lost nearly a billion dollars since 2019, it’s last profitable year, with no end to losses in sight.
So the first thing Alaska Airlines has to do is to stop doing what Hawaiian Airlines was doing!
It’s like saying: “The Titanic sank? Well, the first thing the new captain has to do is stop hitting icebergs!”
As if that’s the whole plan. Never mind the storms, hull design flaws, or that you’re already bailing water with a teacup.
Hawaiian Airlines’ billion-dollar loss since 2019 wasn’t some simple bad habit they could “just stop.” It was a combination of pandemic shutdowns, the departure of long-time CEO and strategic brain Mark Dunkerly, and the arrival of the Southwest juggernaut bulldozing into their island market. Add in fuel volatility, labor contracts, debt, and the operational demands of flying long-haul Pacific routes — something Alaska Airlines has never done, especially not to Asia — and you see why “just do the opposite” is about as useful as telling a landlocked pilot how to steer through a typhoon.
Well, of course there are things beyond their control, but “stop doing that”, while a simplification, isn’t that far off the mark.
The airline did essentially nothing since 2020 to address the issues that were flying it towards bankruptcy that were within its control, the most obvious of which is pouring money down the “premium heavy” 787 rathole.
Come on. 24 A330’s. 12 787’s on order with 4 already delivered and only 19 A321’s. With, of course, no plan whatsoever for modernizing their interisland fleet. (In all fairness, HA is kind of stuck on that one until they see what Southwest is going to do.).
The airline was on track to be some sort of global powerhouse and, “Oh, yeah. We fly A321’s to California, too.”
Hawaiian Airlines investors needed to do what those at Southwest did, step in, and put in a management team that would “stop doing that”. But they didn’t, preferring to sell the company as a whole and let somebody else “stop doing that.”
In regards to ICN & BOS; I have a hunch this has more to do with strengthening AS route structure and longtime merger goals then its has to do with “profitability.”
Zack,
Doubtful. Boston only has loads of 72%, and this is with low fares. It is just not workingn out. Hawaiian had excess capacity to run this trip since its internatonal routes were not panning out.
This plane is going to be put on international routes that are more profitable.
I agree, Chris. Boston was a potential “bridge” to Europe, avoiding the congested New York juggernaught. Same for FUK, which was experimental, but actually (I am writing this from Kyoto) has a lot of potential as it is underserved and US travelers and Kamaaina recently crazy about Japan, which roam the streets of Tokyo and Kyoto, will eventually discover it when they get tired of the crowds here. Delta used to fly in there for years, but they pulled out early.
I personally think Alaska should not have terminated Hawaiian’s codeshares with Jet Blue. Perhaps something in One World or the AA codeshare deal limits this?
I mean, Jet Blue and Alaska/Hawaiian moght compete on maybe 6 routes. The rest of the network could just help Alaska.
Maybe with Jet Blue feeding some passengers in Boston and NYC, these routes will be saved. NYC is still here – for now.
Look at a globe. How could Seattle-Seoul have anything to do with Honolulu-Seoul?
Seattle and Honolulu don’t compete for the same role in a route network. Seattle is a tech-heavy West Coast hub feeding business and domestic traffic into Europe and mainland Asia. Honolulu, by contrast, is the natural mid-Pacific bridge, ideally positioned for Hawaii/West Coast to Asia flows, especially via transfer powerhouses like Narita and Incheon, which connect onward all over Greater China and into Europe. I’ve been an extremely frequent Hawaii/West Coast–to–Far East and Europe traveler for 30 years, flying these routes monthly. I’ve watched the patterns. HNL–NRT and HNL–ICN are “core” because they avoid forcing an extra stop. Cutting them signals that Alaska wants to be a follower, copying what other airlines have done, rather than innovating. Mark Dunkerly grew Hawaiian quickly and successfully because he recognized and invested in strategic connections.
Oh Alex, good grief.
What part of Hawaiian doesn”t have the money to pay its large payment due and no one will pay it, do you not understand?
Hawaiian’s business model failed because there is not enough local Honolulu traffic and limited domestic gatewatys of 10 cities was not enough either.
This time there were no investors lining up. None of the majors were interested. It was either sell to Alaska or that was it. Alaska was the only interested buyer.
Bottom line is Hawaiian was not able to generate enough traffic from 10 domestic gateways. Alaska has about 120 cities from Seattle and it’s codeshare partners. So Alaska can generate a Ton of connecting passengers. Hawaiian couldn’t.
Chris, I agree that Hawaiian’s model couldn’t sustain HNL as a big hub: the local market is small, only ten mainland gateways fed it, and there was little alliance support. Alaska, with 120 U.S. cities and strong codeshares, can feed far more passengers.
But Hawaiian’s fall was also timing and circumstance: the loss of CEO Mark Dunkerley’s strategic vision, Southwest’s aggressive Hawaii entry cutting fares, and the pandemic wiping out long-haul leisure demand. These were specific blows to that airline, not proof HNL can’t work. As a mini hub complementing Seattle, HNL could focus on high-yield niches—premium leisure from Japan, Korea, Oceania; Hawaii stopovers on Asia–U.S. trips; targeted groups—while SEA handles scale and business traffic. Distinct roles avoid cannibalization and create a stronger Alaska network than either hub could alone.
HNL works as a stop on the way to SYD. For HND and ICN, it’s far out of the way; SEA-HNL-NRT is nearly 30% longer than SEA-NRT
Then explain why HNL-JFK is sticking around.
Because JFK serves a third more people than Boston. (62 million vs 43 million)
JT:
Who knows if it is long term. Just because its not announced as gone, does not mean it won’t be.
In Boston, Jet Blue alinged with United. I’d venture to say a large chunk of Boston passengers were Jet Blue reward members and frequent flyers.
JFK is a hub for American, so this will draw some passegers. Look also for Alaska to code share on Boston to JFK routes to increase traffic on this flight
NYC is also a much larger city and metro – substantially greater than Boston. Lots more to draw from.
Time will tell. No doubt Alaska is running numbers.
It’s sticking around “for now.” Who knows how long it will take AS to wind down contracts for gates and ground service at JFK?
I think people in Hawaii kid themselves about how “special” the state is on a global basis. If you live in Europe, there’s plenty of “tropical paradises” you can go to that are a lot closer and cheaper to get to than Hawaii.
Once you get east of the Mississippi, it’s just as easy to go to Latin America or the Caribbean to go to a “beach Verbo” or Hyatt as it is to go to Hawaii.
That’s one reason Hawaiian Airlines is such a good fit for Alaska Airlines. AS’s geographic customer base is such that going to Hawaii is equal to, if not better than, Cancun or elsewhere in Latin America or the Caribbean.
Greater Bostonian here. Will miss the Boston to Honolulu route very much, and sad to see it go. 🙁 My experience taking this flight has been nothing but pleasurable.
Brilliant journalism at its finest, what the author didn’t display, beyond the feelings and emotions of discontinuing beloved routes, is that these 3 flights were Losing money. In the millions per year. Just because someone has flown on a flight once in the last year “and it was full” doesn’t mean that it’s always full. If a route is losing money why as a business would you continue that route? Hawaiian hadn’t been profitable in a single quarter since 2019, and guess what, they just posted their first profitable quarter under AAG management. So all the feelings aside, its a business decision, it’s not about dismantling Hawaiian one route a time as this article likes to indicate.
A lot of people here are missing the subjective element. Sure, if it weren’t for the AS buyout, HA might already have ceased to exist. And, yes, SEA-ICN and the others are shorter without a HNL stop.
But those routes have Nothing to do with Hawaii or Hawaiian Air. They don’t originate in Hawaii and the HA livery and uniforms mean nothing to the product. In my own experience, HA inflight service to the mainland went in the toilet after the buyout. Those flights and their personnel will be impostors, milking whatever value the HA name and illusion lends to their product.
So, yes, they bought and paid for it and can do whatever they want. But they could have just taken all that equipment, personnel, gate slots, etc, and branded it as Alaska, while keeping the Hawaii-based aircraft, personnel, etc, especially with the beefed up Oceania/SOPAC service, branded as HA.
I have Zero loyalty to AS and will fly the best, cheapest, easiest, period. If the scam hurts AS, bachi on them.
A major contributing factor to Hawaiian’s looming bankruptcy and subsequent purchase by Alaska was not cutting underperforming routes more quickly. While it’s disappointing to lose these routes, if the demand is not there, why continue to suffer financial losses?
Orlando and Austin were never strong markets and were only launched because Hawaiian had surplus aircraft. I seriously wonder how much due diligence went into selecting these routes. I don’t know if the A330 has the range for Honolulu – Mexico City, but there is tremendous interest in Hawaii, which might be sufficient to sustain a weekly flight. Another potential market is Manila.
The bottom line is that with Alaska now in the driver’s seat, I sincerely hope that more due diligence is put into route analyses, and that the planning department finds the most profitable use of aircraft and crews to keep Pualani flying to/from Hawai’i.
The only thing that might have saved Hawaiian was putting some of this excess capacity into a mainland hub and start serving mainland destinations.
Hawaiian had 10 domestic gateways to run its passengers to Honolulu hub to connect to Asia and beyond. Alaska has more than 120 connection points from Seattle – either it serves or served by codeshare partners feeding traffic.
Investors were not lining up for any more Hawaiian experiments. Further, none of the majors had any desire to buy Hawaiian. Alaska was the only suitor. Jet Blue was hoped for, but they are pulling back everywhere and largely abandoned the west coast. But even then Jet Blue didnt have enough traffic coming into the west coast to ever feed Hawaiian’s international routes
Plus, JetBlue, terminally ill itself, didn’t see the point of assuming nearly a billion dollars of Hawaiian Airlines debt.
Boston is my home airport. I’m not surprised Alaska is doing this, they’ve proven they don’t care about the Hawaiian brand. Every time I flew BOS to HNL occupancy was at least 85%. Alaska just wants to fuel their own ambitions. Now I have absolutely No reason to hold onto my Hawaiian CC. I’m probably just going to see if Barclay’s can convert it to a JetBlue card for me.
Your anecdotal experience doesn’t comport with the facts. The load factors and yields were both trash. If the route could have worked Delta would have kept BOS-HNL too.
So sad to see Hawaiian serving Hawaii gradually collapsing! Route by route …
HNL-ICN was particularly useful as ICN connects to tons of places. One silver lining would be if TWay started serving and we got some relatively affordable lie-flat seats.
Asia market is not producing results. Can’t fly empty airplanes and stay around.
As for Boston, if the planes were full, at decent fares, then the route would still exist. There are plenty of connection options…not the same, I know, but they do exist. Delta walked away from the route because it wasn’t making any money
The reality looks more nuanced from the ground. Yes, Hawaii has become more expensive for Japanese and Korean travelers due to exchange rates and inflation, but Japan and Korea flights are still running full — booking a return to Hawaii right now is actually quite difficult. The real strategic question isn’t whether the Asia market works at all, but which gateways work best.
Haneda is attractive for Tokyo-bound travelers but suffers from scarce, politically sensitive slots, weaker regional feed, and higher operating costs. Narita, by contrast, is the established connection hub, with strong domestic and Asian links and better resilience in crises — which is why airlines kept Narita service during COVID even when they cut Haneda. Seoul (Incheon) adds another high-efficiency hub, pulling in travelers from Greater China, Southeast Asia, and beyond.
For Hawaii routes, Narita + Seoul are still the key strategic anchors.
Hawaiian will continue to be a second fiddle brand to Alaska Air’s grand plans. Soon no more 787s, repainted A330s… and what? Only A321Ns to the mainland. Sooner if not later they will just be 737-Max’s taking over those out of state routes.
Dude…the A330s aren’t being repainted. They will all remain HA-branded aircraft. And they are all getting a badly needed cabin “refresh.” HA had no way to pay for this. Just like it really had no way to pay or finance the 787 deliveries until Alaska came along. You can whine and moan all you like or be happy that the HA brand is sticking around. Yes, some routes are going away. They were money-losers. It’s a pure business decision. Alaska has dropped routes too when they don’t work out. This is how the commercial aviation business works: You try and succeed or you try and pivot quickly. If you do neither you bleed money and end up a defunct carrier.
Yes, in theory the “cut the money-losers fast” mantra sounds like common sense — but in practice, in network aviation it’s not always obvious which routes are truly losers and which are strategic. It’s like that old line about advertising: half the money is wasted, but nobody knows which half. The same is true for routes. A flight might look unprofitable in isolation, yet be the keystone that makes an entire flow of high-yield traffic work — especially in a hub-and-spoke network crossing the Pacific. Mark Dunkerly understood that with Narita and Incheon: they weren’t just point-to-point, they were gateways feeding the rest of the system. Pull those without fully grasping the ripple effects, and you may “pivot” yourself into losing the very traffic mix that makes the brand viable.
Add that Haneda may be trying to replace Narita’s role, but it’s wedged into the already overcrowded Tokyo Bay — a location that’s not just operationally congested but also geographically vulnerable.
In the end the Hawaiian brand will just be an interisland operation, a regional carrier. With limited flights to mainland and international destinations the exception.
That’s probable all that’s profitable, and that, only if they can figure out that fate of the 717’s and interisland service.
I say bull lie to the story about Honolulu/Incheon route. My wife and I flew twice to Incheon in the past 9 months and the flights were packed. You look at available flights for this week (probably the hottest time in South Korea) and the only seats left are half of the extra charge seats. Well, cut your price on those. 2 months from now, even less seats available.
No, this is all about Alaska and the direct Seattle Incheon route. Which costs less than the HNL ICN route.
Aloha to Hawaiian Air. And now we have to fly to Seattle to go to Incheon. Thanks a bunch.
Korean Air has a HNL – ICN route and its a partner. No need to go to Seattle
Korean Air, while recently better, have a history of safety incidents and hull losses. Won‘t touch them. Many frequent flyers won‘t touch them.
Mark is correct. The Incheon route was packed, as was Narita. Alaska clearly responded to competitive pricing pressures, not on load factors.
Forcing those routes to SEA is a strategic mistake in the long run. These two airports are key to Hawaii due to connections.
Alex, come on man.
Hawaiian can connect 10 US cities thru HNL to ICN or Alaska can connect 120 US and international cities thru SEA to ICN.
Your statement that sending the plane to Seattle is a strategic mistake is laughable.
Chris, both can be true. Forget my remark about “moving the plane to Seattle. That was made in a state of exasperation”
What I am trying to say is that NRT is strategic to HNL. It might also be a very good addition for SEA. I agree.
I think Hawaiian/Alaska cut the NRTHNL route because the stronger competition there was depressing the fares they could charge on that route. Load factor was pretty equal to HNDHNL. The real question is: Why is NRT so popular with other airlines that there was more competition? Because Narita is still the secret king of intra-Asian connectivity. You want to bring mainland chinese traveler to Hawaii? They will arrive through Incheon and Narita! Your biggest growth opportunity is right there.
Also, if we have a quake in Tokyo then forget about Haneda! I used to work on Heiwajima, next to its runways being built in the 90ies. They are on man made land, extremely prone to shaking. Narita is far away.
Addendum: Korean Air’s safety turnaround is real, but “turnaround” in airline safety doesn’t mean “incidents never happen again.” The 2016 uncontained engine failure at Haneda and the 2022 runway excursion in Cebu were both serious events that destroyed aircraft and could have been fatal under only slightly different circumstances.
By contrast, Hawaiian Airlines — in nearly a century of flying — has never had a hull loss, and in the jet age hasn’t had a fatal passenger accident at all. That’s an extraordinary difference in baseline safety record.
The petals of Pualani’s flowers are being plucked out one at a time until the beautiful flower wilts and dies. Then, there is nothing to do but to throw it away.
It’s sad. It hurts. It was foreseeable. It is inevitable.
Way to build the Alaska name and brand while sending Hawaiian Airlines down the porcelin flush tank. I wonder if this has to do with Hawaii obtaining 10% of all Hawaiian Airlines profits? Since the buyout is this perk still even in effect? Maybe this is why all the changes are steering towards Alaska flights to Hawaii.
Where do you get this from? The state of Hawaii did not get 10% of Hawaiian Airlines’ profits. And I’ve got news for you: HA hasn’t been profitable since 2019 until the 2nd Quarter of this year. Who should we thank for that? The answer is new management under Alaska control. These are just facts!
What profits?
Hawaiian Airlines last profitable year was 2019 and there was no indication anything about that was going to change.
Alaska Airlines also assumed $900 million in Hawaiian Airlines debt that Hawaiian would not have been able to continue to service with continued losses.
All things considered, the HA stockholders, and employees, got a gift from God.