Putting Hawaii travel costs in perspective. From the Honolulu Clipper take off to today’s landing.
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191 thoughts on “Prices Went From $5,500 To $99 As Air Travel Reshaped Hawaii”
Putting Hawaii travel costs in perspective. From the Honolulu Clipper take off to today’s landing.
Aloha Folks—
Ironically, my very first flight was not to Honolulu—
It was from Honolulu— On Saturday, September 30th, 1950. I was almost four, and remember it vividly. My Dad was a Doctor in the Public Health Service, we were being transferred back to the Mainland.
At 3pm on that long ago Saturday in the Territory, at Naval Air Station Honolulu on Keehi Lagoon, we boarded the Martin JRM-3 Hawaii Mars flying boat, and took off from Seaplane Runway 4. Sixteen hours later,
we landed on San Francisco Bay and came ashore at NAS Alameda.
Google the Mars. It was an amazing way to take a first flight!
A Hui Hou,
Bill S.
Honolulu
Hi Bill.
Thanks so much for sharing that unique travel experience. What a fascinating memory.
Aloha.
I thought these were the Martin Mainer but no these were the single tailed sea plane. I knew a guy that was a gunner on a Martin Mariner in the Pacific in WW2.
Your Martin JRM-3 only had a top speed of a speedy 220 mph (😁) (not cruising speed) the reason fer yer long trip to NAS Alameda!
How sad NONE of the Pan AM China/Hawaii Clippers have ever been preserved, that I know of.
Correct, none of the 314’s survived…there is a full sized mock up in Ireland at the Foynes Flying Boat and Maritime museum. Pretty
cool museum and worth the visit if you are in Ireland.
Rob and Jeff, just to add to your HA segment, while they operated the S38’s and 43’s inter island, they never actually utilized their water landing capabilities on the scheduled flights. They also started their mainland routes initially with DC-8’s before acquiring the L 1011’s . Hawaiian was the last airline in the U S to operate the DC 8 on scheduled passenger service. They also flew pretty much all over the globe with the DC 8’s on charter flights.
I recall my first flight to Hawaii in 1964 on a United DC 8…I still remember the inflight movie, Shane with Alan Ladd, it was a big deal to see that on an airplane at the time and still remember the distinct taste of the inflight steak. I was lucky enough to be in first as my Dad was pilot with United. He started flying for them in 1946 and flew DC-6’s and 7’s LAX to HNL in the late 50’s. He was a co pilot at the time and one of the Captains he used to fly with was Bud Gurney….Charles A Lindbergh’s old barnstorming partner in the early 20’s.
(This is way more fun the talking about Mask’s and vax’s…all that will pass and be consigned to history too!)
Hi John.
Thanks so much for that interesting Hawaii information from your own experience. Personally, these comments are a lot more interesting than the ones about COVID.
There was a time when HA kept old planes including a mish-mosh of 767’s and all those other aircraft that including those you mentioned. Then as we recall it was Mark that first had the foresight to modernize the HA fleet. Looking back, that was a really smart move.
PS. Thanks for more than 300 comments to date!
I love Hawaii and have ever since I transferred from New York in 1969 with Trans World Airlines to open our station in Honolulu . Unfortunately TWA had to leave Hawaii in 1975 due to high fuel prices and an austerity program. I was there to see wide bodied aircraft bring passengers to the beautiful islands and the major expansion if the airport in Honolulu. I have been able to return to Hawaii every 2 years with my timeshare in Kauai. I love that you have been able via your article to inform your readers to how travel to Hawaii has changed over the years.
Hawaii is like heaven on earth. The food the wonderful people. Hope I can return one day. Sorry Don Ho is gone but he is singing with the angels
1955: Flew on a DC-4 with a couple of high school buddies to surf Town in the summer. What a trip – about 12 hours of noise and vibration. Had great fun surfing all the Waikiki breaks. Bought a 1950 DeSoto with bad brakes for $49 and drove all over O’ahu surfing and bodysurfing where we could. It had a leaky exhaust so (1) the floorboards would get really hot and (2) the air in the car got pretty toxic. When we left we just parked it at the airport and flew on another DC-4 back to the mainland. Maybe it’s still there! (After that car, the DC-4 seemed pretty nice.)
It was so different then. the area around Queen’s was called the Jungle and it really wasn’t too safe at night. We were just kids so we stayed in at night anyway – not old enough to go to any of the multitude of cheap beer bars in the area.
Our family traveled to Hawaii for the first time in 1972. Mom had set up a two week whirlwind tour of Hawaii, Maui, Kauai and Oahu. We boarded the United flight at SFO, somehow we got bumped to first class and it was memorable. We landed in Hilo and back then there were no Jet ways. After a night in Hilo we drove over to Kona, while driving we noticed a boy on the roadside with a long stick poking a tree. Intrigued, Dad stopped and asked what he was doing. Mangos! We bought a couple for .25 each, wow were they good. We body surfed at Magic Sands (no body boards back then), well the truth is we ate a lot of sand while being pounded along the bottom. Still I was hooked. Other highlights of the trip were the road to Hana and the “Seven Sacred pools” which was much different back then. Kauai was marvelous, we had bikes and I went everywhere, no traffic, just a million dead flat frogs. The last stop was Oahu and it was so different. Mom had written the Navy and arranged a Pearl Harbor tour that has us land on the Arizona, which at that time was the only way you could. My memories of a Hawaii that is long gone, in substance and spirit. I miss it.
1964 – transferring from tour of duty in Japan to McGuire AFB, NJ – my parents and I had 10 glorious days at Ft. Derussy, right on the beach. Dad insisted I buy a bikini (I was 14) and we took surfing lessons, then he and went out on our own. Ooops the tide was going out and I was not strong enough to paddle fast (never have been) so it took hours lying on our boards to get back to the beach. Super bad sunburn on virgin areas of my back made the 12 hours flight to San Francisco rather painful. Loved being met with Leis, performing at a Luau, eating fresh pineapple. Could not eat pineapple from a can for years after that, and of course the stores in the mainland did not get fresh pineapple back then. 1992 – Holistic veterinary conference to be held on Kauai, then Inki came through and devastated it. In two weeks we were able to relocate to Maui, so my husband, 3 year old daughter and I had a glorious week there, and a second on Hawaii – turtles, decorating coconuts to mail back to amazed friends of hers in Maryland, black sands, beginning to appreciate the old ways. Next trip was a week at Poipu with husband and 10 year old daughter, then Oahu to teach a class on homeopathy for animals, then flew back to Kauai. As I stepped off the plane, as Rob said, I felt a deep connection to this island, as if it were a long lost home. Too many wonderful memories from that and other trips to Kauai as I began learning the old ways from Iokeppe and Inette Miller’s books – Grandmothers Whisper and The Return Voyage. I was in the first protest against GMOs that was held at Poipu (still have the tshirt and my white sandals turned red!). Greeted with a lovely lei when on the radio with Dr. Ihor Basko, an amazing holistic veterinarian on the island. Many plans to return frequently.
A first time flyer scared out of my mind, I flew to Honolulu to meet my husband for R&R in 1970. I don’t remember much about that trip! BUT, I flew to Kauai to visit my sister who lived there in 2010, heard Delta was starting ground handling in LIH, and got a job – moved immediately! I did return to South Carolina after a few years, but returned to live in Kauai once again for a few years. Now I keep in touch with my Ohana – the friends you meet in Hawaii stay with you as Ohana all your life! I’ll be back to visit as soon as my airline (AA) and the other airlines are able to get back on track.
After all of these years of seeing the Matson containers on the back of trucks and sitting in the port of Oakland, I find out that they are Hawaii’s premiere shipping company. And here I thought I knew all there was to know about the Bay Area, not realizing the very special relationship we have with Hawaii. Interesting read, thank you. Aloha!
Hi Debi.
Thank you.
Aloha.
Little known fact, after WW2 Matson Steamship Company started an airline with DC 4’s. The famed author Ernest Gann flew for them.
They offered inflight service far superior to the competition. PanAm had the political clout to stop them in their tracks in the then highly regulated airline industry so they lasted less then a year.
Speaking of regulation, the airline industry was deregulated in 1978 to allow for open competition. Every prederegulation airline in the U.S since then has either disappeared or merged to survive the competitive environment the industry became, every single airline but one….Hawaiian Airlines. They are the lone survivor of the airline deregulation era.
On several of our first flights to Maui involved an inter island flight from Honolulu to Maui on a two engine 6 passenger plane . The GREAT thing about it was the small A framed terminal on Kaanapali beach. The pilot would spot humpbacks and dive down to get a better look. Fun times back then. We could walk to the hotel from that terminal. Wish it was still there.