The latest Alaska Air Group schedule changes put two very different decisions side by side. Hawaiian Airlines will not resume its seasonal Honolulu-Auckland service this November, while Alaska Airlines is adding new Honolulu flights from Boise and Spokane. Meanwhile, Hawaiian is increasing service between Honolulu and Las Vegas. So what does it all mean to Hawaii travelers?
Our readers noticed the routes, but they focused on something else. Why are new Hawaii flights still being introduced under the Alaska name when many travelers expected Hawaiian to become the primary brand for flying to the islands?
One South Pacific route with 40-year roots is making way for more mainland flying.
Hawaiian had planned to resume its three-times-weekly Auckland service in November. The airline instead cited high fuel costs, a slower recovery in international Pacific travel, unfavorable exchange rates, and changing travel patterns as reasons for not bringing it back.
The aircraft will not sit unused. Alaska Air Group said the change will support more Hawaii flying from domestic markets. Case in point, Hawaiian is adding peak-season capacity between Honolulu and Las Vegas, flown with the A330, the same aircraft type that served Auckland. So more seasonal widebody flying is going into Las Vegas, a market Hawaii residents have long seen as an unofficial ninth island.
Hawaiian still offers service from Honolulu to French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, American Samoa, Osaka, Tokyo (Haneda), and Sydney.
Other news outlets are calling Auckland a seasonal route that ran only since the pandemic.
That is not the whole story. Hawaiian first started flying to New Zealand in 1986, with one stop in Pago Pago on the L-1011s. That early service ended when Hawaiian pulled back its South Pacific network, and the nonstop Honolulu to Auckland route we know now began in March 2013. The service has not run unbroken, but Hawaiian’s history in New Zealand reaches back a full 40 years. This was not a recent experiment being trimmed. What Auckland represented was reach.
With Seoul and Fukuoka routes gone last year and Narita moved to flying from Seattle instead of Honolulu, the pattern isn’t really about Hawaii at all. Alaska has said it aspires to be the fourth global airline to rival American, Delta and United, and is basing that ambition in Seattle, with new service to Tokyo, Seoul, London, Iceland and Rome.
Hawaiian’s Pacific routes are not failing as much as they’re being reassigned. An airline that once measured itself by how far across the Pacific it flew from Honolulu now feeds a global network flown from Seattle.
The new routes raised a branding question.
The Boise and Spokane flights will operate on Alaska-branded Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. Boise gets daily winter service, while Spokane gets one weekly Saturday flight during its seasonal run.
Readers spoke up right away. One said he was under the impression that anything going to Hawaii would be branded Hawaiian, and now he is not so sure. John W. said Alaska is making a mistake not branding the new flights as Hawaiian, since Hawaiian has always been a marketing advantage over any other airline serving the islands.
Terry, a longtime reader, went further. From the beginning, she wrote, it was made clear that Hawaiian was to be the brand for everything that touched the islands, and that is clearly no longer the plan. She called it a missed opportunity and a lack of value placed on the Hawaiian brand.
So which is it? When you book a flight to Hawaii now, what decides whether the plane says Alaska or Hawaiian?
The destination does not appear to decide the brand.
Alaska aircraft are still being assigned to new Hawaii routes, and the transition is more complicated than swapping one name for another on every route that touches the islands. What the announcement does reflect is the current logic, and it is not about the destination at all.
What this means the next time you book.
Boise and Spokane are arriving on Alaska-branded Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, while the added Las Vegas flights will be on Hawaiian’s A330.
Alaska does not fly A330s, and Hawaiian does not fly 737s, so the name on the fuselage tells you which fleet is operating the route, and for now, which crew. An Alaska-branded 737 comes with Alaska pilots and cabin crew, and a Hawaiian A330 with Hawaiian pilots and cabin crew. Either way, it is the same company.
Did you expect most flights to Hawaii to become Hawaiian-branded, and does the aircraft name change anything for you when you book?
Lead Photo Credit: © Beat of Hawaii at HNL, Mauka Concourse, Terminal 1.
By Rob and Jeff, Beat of Hawaii.
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Could it be that this is just the mix of aircraft they have at the time to service the routes? Otherwise 737’s not used by Hawaiian would have to be repainted, and Hawaiian crews would have to be trained on new equipment? Probably logistics, more than anything else?
Alaska has more planes than Hawaiian and therefore has more flexibility to add and reduce service to other areas.
I’m guessing Hawaiians planes are maxed out on their current routes so Alaska is filling the new or expanded service using their branded planes. Perhaps they may rebrand some of their 737’s to Hawaiian for Hawaii routes to fulfill their goal of only or most Hawaiian planes flying to Hawaii?? Feedback?
There are 17 A321neos and 24 A330-200s with Pualani tails. If Alaska intends to fly more than 41 planes to and from the islands at a time, until it starts repainting 737s, some routes will be Alaska-branded. If I were Alaska trying to crowd out Southwest, I would rather send those limited Hawaiian-branded planes to successful and shared destinations like LAX, LAS, SMF, OAK, and SFO. A flight from Boise or Spokane, where Alaska is the market leader, will perform the same regardless of the branding.
Perhaps I was reading what I Wanted, but I was under the impression that the Hawaiian brand would be on all flights from/to the islands.
The name on the aircraft is irrelevant. It’s still Alaska Airlines no matter what it says. People focusing on the name on the plane have 1st world problems.
We flew HA in March from AKL to LAX, connecting in HNL and flying on to LAX on the very same plane. (It took HA so long to move the plane from our arrival gate to our departure gate, the flight was over 45 minutes late departing.) The only reason was the price. It was ~$1400 for business class, which is more than the HA A330 business class was worth. It’s a terrible product.