Many problems include the inability to buy tickets, check in, use confirmation codes, make online changes, etc.. The proof of the pudding will be just how quickly Hawaiian Airlines can resolve these issues and move forward with its new Amadeus reservation technology.
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All im trying to do is add baggage but app will not allow. I do not need to wait in a long line just for this. It is the 24th and still not fixed. We fly back and forth regularly and this is a big problem
Kiosks still down Sunday 4-24. Unable to get seat assignments except at the counter. Staff are helpful but stressed. Flight delayed 1 hour out of Kona.
Sunday: I’ve basically moved into the food court of the Honolulu airport. They’ve given our group a second round of $15. Meal vouchers, about enough for a cup of coffee. Customer service is frazzled and seem to have their hands tied. The individuals are nice in person, but the customer service phone number is an infuriating waste of time. We’ve asked for travel credit. At this point we don’t even believe a flight is showing up. Their problems continue.
Those that have problems, we need to send complaints to the FAA as the FAA keeps track of all airline complaints and will have Hawaiian fix the issue and possibly give compensation out to those who complain. Documentation is everything and believe me the FAA will be up HAs you know what if we all complain.
Actually the FAA has nothing to do with it. It is the DOT that you would send your complaints to.
20-year Platinum member. Finally got thru to online booking via their site after trying for FIVE DAYS. Their app was the same nightmare. On my 6th attempt I got as far as reservation review and payment. But was bumped off! Got back after many attempts and two hours later and all the initial mileage quotes increased by 25%! And the 30+ seating upgrades (a rip to begin with) were gone! Only two $215 upgrades were available. Phoned customer support. Level 1 had no empathy or answers. Refused to patch me thru to Level 2. Called back got thru to Level 2. Told me tuff luck. No more fare holds, changes can happen every minute! Aloha is gone from HA. They don’t care anymore.
At least when SWA screwed up they compensated their customers… even the no status ones.
Yeah I’ve been going through the app the whole time. I deleted it and reinstalled it just in hopes, still nothing. Our trip is two weeks away so we will see.
Shame on you Hawaiian Airlines. We can’t book online or via the app and yet you give us no updates as to when this issue will be fixed. Just called to book my flights and waited for 52 minutes, only to result in someone picking up the line, then hanging up. Terrible, terrible, terrible. I know this is unforeseen but at the Very least, keep your customers updated on the progress so we’re not wasting our time calling and getting no where.
My flight in May is still totally gone from their records. I’ve talked to multiple agents and managers and they all just say they are still updating and to call back tomorrow or that I never made a reservation. My Hawaiian credit card clearly still shows a charge from February. Strange enough all my miles I used to purchase the tickets have been refunded on the app. Anyone else having the same issue?
Hi Derek B. I noticed the same thing with my reservation missing when I logged into the website. I was told by a friend to sign in using the app and the app does show my reservation. I noticed the confirmation code changed from my original reservation. You may want to try the app and see if your reservation shows up.
When I checked in on the 19th for my flight on the 20th, my confirmation code had also changed. I noticed at the airport that there was a very long line to have staff check them in by hand. Not a smooth transition. Plan on checking my miles total now, after reading the comments.
I noticed when I checked in on the 19th, for our flight on the 20th, that the website was going to go through a transition. Fortunately there wasn’t a problem getting our 0n line check in done. Lines at the Honolulu airport were another matter. They were very long, and even though there seemed to be enough staff, it took a long time to get done. Our departure was over an hour late, and the staff said it was related to the transition and problems getting passengers on board. It didn’t help that TSA seemed to have only one security checkpoint open when we were there, to serve both mainland and inter island passengers. Even with TSA pre-check it was a long, long line.
I saw the chaos firsthand at Kahului (OGG) on 4/20/2023. I completed my work assignment earlier than expected and decided to switch to an earlier flight back to Honolulu, which has Never been an issue in the past. While waiting in the Guest Services line, I watched 4 people (3 HawnAir employees and 1 Amadeus employee) hovering over one PC trying to figure something out. Meanwhile, the line is getting longer. Fortunately, HawnAir representative Corey at the “Bag Drop” counter waved me over and got me switched to an earlier flight, which ended up being delayed 90 minutes. Good thing I got on that flight though because my original flight out was cancelled at the last minute. Time to switch to Southwest?
I traveled from JFK to Honolulu Wednesday for a much anticipated vacation. My luggage was a no show. There is NO customer support. After leaving a report at the airport and after numerous attempts to call, text and email, nothing. Frustrated doesn’t begin to explain how I feel.
this is normal and not related to the website up(down)grade
As of 8:00am San Francisco time, today, April 21, Hawaiian Air is still experiencing severe tech issues. This morning, even though they have taken down the red banner warning they erased all mention and records of my flight next Wednesday and its impossible to get through to them. I am sorely tempted to chalk this flight up to a loss and get a United Ticket to Kona. I feel removing the warning banner is an attempt to decieve their customers. I would like to say to Beat of Hawaii, I value your website and reporting but daily updates on the Hawaiian Air situation would be deeply appreciated. Thank you
Hi Jim.
Thanks. Sorry to hear about the problem you encountered and thanks for letting us know. We already updated the post twice and we’ll do so again as needed.
Aloha.
I got an email on April 5th about this event. Maybe the other issues were unplanned, but much of what you describe is in the email. Just was supposed to be done by the 19th.
I’ve been Platinum for many years. This system upgrade to Amadeus is so frustrating. I had flights Wednesday and Thursday (19th and 20th). They email saying, “show up two hours ahead because of the upgrade.” OK, fine. Huge mess and chaos at the counters. Ok fine, but then the flight is 2 hours late leaving?! What?! Show up extra early to wait for a delayed flight?! Again, Thursday, go early, no chaos, but again 2 hour delayed flight. I have a flight Friday the 21st. No longer trusting their flight times, the only way to change to earlier is to call. On the phone 45 minutes, pay $100 difference, all so that this new (probably delayed) flight won’t mess up my business meeting. No longer can depend on their schedules. Looking at Southwest now.
Perhaps unrelated, but all Delta kiosks were down tonight at KOA. Ag screening for checked bags closed. Agents working so hard to get everyone screened to board in time.
Would have been nice to know that major system changes were happening on 4/19/23. Lihue to Oahu trip delayed 3+ hrs with 2 small kids—Airline staff was very helpful and cheerful even after a nightmarish day for them with all the flight delays.
Yea, the airport was a mess. Disorganized lines everywhere. Kiosks weren’t working right and was unable to find my info as well as many others. My flight was delayed by over 2 hours. The situation was awful, yes, but the staff did great despite it all. Unfortunately, this was the first and last time I will ever use their airlines.
Here it is Thursday evening and my wife’s flight from HNL to KOA was first delayed an hour and a half and is now canceled. This isn’t close to being fixed. Four women went to Oahu for a day shopping trip, now the return is canceled and my wife’s medications are here at home where she can’t get them.
Normally for new hire agents we are required to have more than 3 months of training for making the call center -works. And after they made this “improvement” we are only trained for 7days, and that’s not all the procedure because there are some procedure that didn’t even know how to do it. So, here we are in the call center, almost clueless , normal changing flight will take us 2mins to be done before, and now half an hour we are still waiting for the “experts” to figure that out.
This is sad. I’ve been a platinum member for years and to still be dealing with this is sad. Year after year the profits are shown but the problems seems to worsen. As a business traveler we are left holding the bag. Why are we being charge so much for an airline that cares only about the bottom line? The execution of this new program falls on management. The frontline workers do not deserve the backlash they are getting from the travelers. Between this and the circus at HNL traveling in Hawaii is horrible. Hope the state and Hawaiian can get this sorted out.
Get it sorted out? They can’t even fix their roads or come to a consensus on how to deal with traffic.
We got caught in this nightmare, and I appreciate your reporting on the problem. We tried to book a fligh Last week, we’re enticed to purchase the credit card to procure the 1/2 price companion fare. It took 5 days to receive the card and we jumped online to purchase our tickets just when they went down for the system upgrade you described. Then we’re told we can’t get the discount until the email code arrives. They managed to send 5 emails with various information, but told us the discount email may take 10 days. Shady, deceptive, infuriating, lousy customer service at its worst. Grrrrr.
Flew Hawaiian to Maui this morning from LAX. It was a nightmare. The agents did not know how to use the new system which did not have correct information. When we finally got to the gate a 20 minute walk, they wouldn’t let my husband board because the system showed he didn’t pay for 3 bags which were medical equipment and there is no charge for them. So they held him back until they could get the system to correct the mistake. We arrived at the airport at 5:30 and didn’t get to the gate until 7:40 and they were already boarding. Now we are sitting on the ground waiting for our gate to become available. They did an abominable job of implementing the new system and the communication to their booked customers didn’t tell us everything.
Aloha, just wanted to say that as of April 15th we were denied boarding on Hawaiian Airlines out of Hilo, for a booked and paid for flight, causing us to miss our connecting flight in HNL on United. Just FYI. Still waiting to hear from United about this, since they were the ones who booked the itinerary. Thanks, Sandra S
If anyone was caught unaware of the HA website unavailability, they did not read the warnings clearly posted on the website. Granted, this should have been done further in advance than a day or so, but a large banner on the HA website had the warning for all to see.
Hi Frank.
Just to reiterate, the page containing all the information about what is and is not working was only published yesterday, not before. That is definite.
Aloha.
Well I looked for tickets a about a week ago, or and there was a warning then, talking about the upgrade and the no fare holds during that time.
Don’t remember the whole message, but it was there.
when are you going to start flying BNE to HNL please??
What’s BNE?
Brisbane Airport
The system turnover from Sabre to Amadeus was the only planned event on April 18th. The system failure was not planned. Hawaiian Airlines is internally notorious (employees know & voice concerns but are not listened to) for not doing a sample system test prior to going completely live nor do they have a backup plan in the event of system failure. Had Hawaiian Airlines done a sample test turnover as other industries do, i.e. Banking industry, issues could have been foreseen & resolved prior to a complete live turnover.
No big deal. Thankfully, there’s always Southwest Airlines on which we can depend for our inter-island flight service needs.
Oh wait…
Eldo….rumor is Braniff 3 (or is it 4?) is going to start up again with inter island DC-3’s…the heck with all this new fangled technology stuff!
Johnw, that’s the spirit! Although I prefer the B-727 Braniff in those cool pastel livery colors. My dad even got the stewardess (mini skirt !!) to let me visit the cockpit and sit in the captain’s seat for a few seconds as we were boarding!
or the big pumpkin? An all orange 747 that used to fly between DFW and HNL…..
We tried to fly home to Sacramento from Honolulu yesterday. I couldn’t get my niece checked in at the kiosk. We waited in the Guest Services line for 3.5 hours and never made it halfway thru the line. I finally found a lady walking around that re booked us to go out today. I am really concerned about getting out today. I have never seen such a disaster
With no staff to help. People couldn’t print bag tags and access boarding passes on the Kiosks. People were crying . I have emailed Hawaiian for a refund on our travel costs and they have yet to respond.
This isn’t exclusive to SWA or Hawaiian, but other then the Government is there any other industry that has done less investing in their computer soft and hardware then the airline industry?
My boyfriend and I were supposed to be traveling on 4/19 from Honolulu to San Diego on flight HA16. When we arrived at the airport none of the checkin/bag tag kiosks were working, nor was the app or website. We were directed to the “guest services” line, which at the time appeared to have about 300 people in it. We got to the end and waited in line for 5.5 hours. During that time we missed our flight. After a couple hours they started passing out water and chips but After making several requests for more substantial food, they eventually got a couple pizzas for the ~60 people that remained. When we finally got to the front they rescheduled us for a next day flight and gave us a hotel and food voucher. The food vouchers never worked.
Hawaiian Airlines is wonderful has been wonderful for years give it a break be patient it will all come out in the wash.
Hawaiian Airlines is a very good airlines company be patient.
I am signed up with Hawaiian Airlines and received an important email about this system update event on 4/5 and described similar outages mentioned above scheduled for 4/18. The enhancement should be available on 4/19. It looked like there are some issues still from reading your posts.
My own experience working with Healthcare IT where we need to upgrade our systems all the time. Upgrade planning and testing is really important to avoid real-time issues for end users and patients. There are not many small systems out there that are equipped with adequate testing, integration testing, and realistic data. It’s a big effort to properly planning a system upgrade.
I hope they can get back to the norm soon.
Aloha, I was going to say when I worked in computer systems for utilities… same as what you already said. Test, test, test and test some more. Train, train, train the staff! OMG
Thanks for the info, BOH.
Looks like Hawaiian dropped the ball. This was a planned transition from Sabre to Amadeus and an upgrade to their system. They could have done a better job communicating to the traveling public and highlighted the fact that it was a one time brief transition….I’m sure now some will think they are no different than SWA’S antiquated system that can’t be so easily upgraded.
Aloha – yes, that red banner is Still appearing on HA’s website as of 5 am HST. I feel for everyone going through this. What a nightmare!
Sounds like they should have been making smaller upgrades all along rather than try and roll out all at once. Just think, if it happened to me I’d have to buy a house and stay in Hawaii. Then I could visit attractions free.
I wonder if they will compensate flyers like SWA did?
So did they outsource their “successful” software upgrade to another country just like their customer service? How an airline that claims to be all about Hawaii can have customer service Not in Hawaii still escapes me.
I used to think that Hawaiian was the best of the best but my forthcoming Trip next Wednesday will be the last. First they changed flights on me to times very inconvenient to my work schedule. THe prior flight had been selected to accomodate that schedule. Then, despite their “no change fees” policy, they wnated to charge me $86 for a more accomodating flight. Reports of frequent flight delays and now this ill-thought out technology change where today, I am unable to confirm I even have a flight. I live in fear of next Wednesday, Hawaiian no more
I will be waiting for all the Southwest haters to be commenting on this tech issue with HA. Remember the comments posted Tuesday.
My husband’s team is working around the clock to integrate the upgraded system into action. HA has never upgraded their system before, so the whole IT Dept has been doing their best! He went to work at 6am and didn’t come home until 4am next day, his manager slept at the office. They are trying their best to make this transition as smoothly as possible.
Miki O,
If this is the case, I thank him and his coworkers and hope they can fix things asap.
I’ve not worked in IT, but have had to work long hours on things that kept people from going places. Their patience was fine for a while, but soon it waned.
I’ve book my accommodations for late September a day or two ago, but now have to wait till all is fixed. Hopefully the IT Department can get it fixed in time for me to book my flight.
Hoping for a quick successful outcome.
Well I hate to say it but your husband, the entire IT staff failed miserably at their jobs. Hope he’s paid hourly. Anyone with any intelligence knows you try new systems in pieces so you can trouble shoot any problems. Guess that part escaped them. Oh well traveling in the good ole USA is an adventure.
Praying for the Hawaiian Airlines employees and Techs. Hope it doesn’t happen in June when I go!!! 🙂
Thanks Miki…. Safe to say IT is all about dealing with the unexpected.
Look forward to using the new website, it was due for an upgrade!