From an analysis of costs, seating, legroom, and more, to tips and a checklist to help you decide.
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50 thoughts on “How To Choose | Hawaiian Or Southwest To Hawaii In Economy”
From an analysis of costs, seating, legroom, and more, to tips and a checklist to help you decide.
If you are flying Hawaiian to/from LAX you need to keep in mind it is over a mile walk from entrance to gate and vice versa. It involves escalators up/down and poor signage (in my opinion). While there is a golf chart type shuttle part of the way, you need to allow extra time for the hike!
Thanks… I may be doing that flight tin April.
Thats not Hawaiian’s fault
Fortunate that when I leave the islands to travel back to the mainland I don’t travel economy. That being said I will always fly Hawaiian regardless of what SWA has to offer. Can’t imagine not having reserved seating and lining up by number.
Most important though is SWA was the biggest reason the instagram/social media entitled crowd has infiltrated our islands.
None of my friends here chose SWA for that reason alone.
Mahalo for a well done article guys. Enjoy your weekend!
Hi Chris.
Thanks. You too!
Aloha.
“…SWA was the biggest reason the instagram/social media entitled crowd has infiltrated our islands.” They were around long before SWA showed up.
True that but you can’t deny SWA exasperated the problem!
For us this is all about routing and nothing more. One gets us there and the other doesn’t.
Great breakdown Thank you 😊
Let me address and correct this statement…“While it all worked fine, queueing for seats leaves a lot to be desired.”
Southwest actually boards less passengers at a time than most airlines since they board in groups. Numbered boarding cards are called to board in numerical order. If you’re not in the group to be called, then there’s absolutely no reason to stress or line up. Just stay seated and comfortable until they go through the boarding process and get to your group. You’ll line up, yes… but it’s not the free for all that you make it out to be. It’s actually very civilized, now, I find! Much better than the system they used to use! It’s even better for their loyal, A List flyers… they will call them up after the A group.
Hawaiian gets points for the meal. It’s basically a fancy hot pocket, but that’s better than a bag of pretzels. Also the free rum punch.
I just flew HA from Sacramento to Honolulu yesterday, changing planes to a Boing 717 in Kahului. The second flight took 30 minutes. I waited at the carousel for 50 minutes for my bag. The plane only seats 100. It was beyond frustrating.
I just flew HA from Sacramento to Honolulu yesterday, changing planes to a Boing 717 in Kahului. The second flight took 30 minutes. I waited at the carousel for 50 minutes for my bag. The plane only seats 100. It was beyond frustrating.
Just last week we went thru this exercise for our January 2023 trip to Kauai. Our priority is to fly out of Sacramento at a decent time. Best deals are usually out of Bay Area airports but longer drive & traffic hassles not worth it. We have flown SW to Hawaii, but this trip we went with Hawaiian Main Cabin because it was a wide body plane & we could choose our seats two together for small fee. SW was about same price excluding luggage fees, but HA flight times were better. No one mentions covid anymore but we still wear masks when flying and sitting together without a third person in the row is very appealing and worth extra cost. We just recovered from covid & it is not an experience we care to repeat if we can help it.
I just booked flights for next year on Hawaiian. I’d never book an airline that has no seat selection option. And I like the island vibe.
We have to make a connection in CA and if my first flight is running late as happened once, on Southwest we were both on a middle seat in different rows…if connection is needed the seat assignments can be a plus.