While Hawaiian Airlines never launched service to Europe, their flight crew did when Alaska took over and needed them for Dreamliner service to Rome and London. Passengers boarding Alaska’s newly branded Dreamliners will see the Alaska name on the outside and Alaska’s new international service inside, but the flight attendants delivering that experience are still the same Hawaiian Airlines crews. A recent Wall Street Journal reviewer flying from Rome to Seattle found them providing attentive service, elaborate meals, and the smaller touches designed to make a long flight feel premium.
Alaska announced today that their international network from Seattle will expand again next May, with new Dreamliner service to Athens beginning May 12 and Paris following May 25.
Google Flights was showing many Alaska business-class round trips from Seattle to London in the $8,000 to $10,000 range, with some dates even higher, raising the stakes for what passengers expect from the premium experience.
What passengers couldn’t see was a dispute that has been building over how much those Hawaiian flight attendants are being asked to handle. Their union says duties were added after initial service testing without another assessment of the workload, and the disagreement has now escalated into a formal grievance.
Four flight attendants are needed up front.
The Boeing 787-9 has 300 seats, including 34 lie-flat business-class suites and 266 seats in the rest of the aircraft’s economy layout. According to the Association of Flight Attendants, serving those 34 suites requires four flight attendants, or about 9 passengers per crew member, leaving five or six crew members for the remaining 266 passengers, or roughly 44 to 53 passengers per crew member, depending on the flight’s load and staffing level.
That service comes from people who knew these aircraft before they ever wore Alaska colors. We flew Hawaiian Airlines’ Dreamliner in first class from Los Angeles to Honolulu last October and were especially impressed by the Hawaiian crew and the distinctive service they brought to the aircraft. Since then, the planes have changed dramatically and Hawaiian’s Dreamliners have been repainted in Alaska’s global livery, and they are now being used to build Alaska’s international network from Seattle.
Concerns about what that new role would require surfaced before the latest grievance. AFA, the flight attendants’ union, reported catering problems, uneven workloads and difficulty maintaining a consistent service flow as Hawaiian crews prepared to operate Alaska’s new international product.
More was added after the tests.
Flight attendants participated in four test flights between Seattle and Seoul while the new service was being developed. The purpose was to see how the proposed international product worked under actual conditions before settling on what crews would ultimately be expected to provide.
AFA says the main-cabin testing was conducted with the understanding that additional service elements would not be layered on afterward. Management subsequently introduced several anyway, according to the union, without conducting another test of the resulting workload.
Those additions included Premium Class service, recognition of elite passengers, expanded beverage choices, alcohol sales, ice cream and warm cookies. Any one may sound quite minor from a passenger seat, but across a widebody cabin, each creates additional preparation, delivery, and cleanup that must fit around meals, beverages, and everything else happening during a long international flight.
The two sides continued evaluating the operation during an observation period that ended May 28, but they did not reach an agreement. AFA says management’s recurring response to crew concerns was essentially to “make it work,” while the union argues that Section 29.I.4 of the Hawaiian Airlines flight attendant contract requires mutual agreement over 787-9 in-flight service requirements.
Just this week, on August 14, AFA filed a formal grievance seeking a change. The union says that if management wants Hawaiian crews to continue delivering the current service, staffing needs to increase, or the alternative is to reduce what flight attendants are expected to provide.
Passengers may not ever realize there’s a problem.
There isn’t much evidence yet that travelers are walking off these flights unhappy with the experience. In fact, the recent Wall Street Journal review of Alaska’s new long-haul business class found something very different.
Flying from Rome to Seattle, the reviewer found the Hawaiian crew delivering the multi-course dining and personal attention Alaska is promoting as part of its international product. The experience worked well enough that a passenger would have little reason to suspect there was a disagreement over what it took to provide it.
That’s what makes the flight attendants’ complaints more telling. They aren’t saying Hawaiian crews have stopped providing what travelers were promised, but that maintaining the standard has become unreasonable under the existing service and staffing arrangement.
A successful flight can therefore look very different depending on where you’re seated. Passengers may see an attentive crew and a polished product while the people providing both believe the system behind them needs to change.
The Hawaiian name is gone from the plane, but not the crew.
For longtime Hawaiian Airlines passengers, that may be the most interesting part of the story. Hawaiian’s Dreamliner identity disappeared remarkably quickly, but the flight attendants who helped largely define the experience aboard those planes are still the ones working them.
Those crews are now helping Alaska establish an international product extending far beyond Hawaii, aboard aircraft that once represented Hawaiian’s own long-haul future dreams. The paint and destinations changed first, while much of what passengers recognize as Hawaiian service still comes from the very same people in the cabin.
For now, passengers appear to be receiving the premium experience they are paying for, while the Hawaiian flight attendants providing it say the balance behind that experience has gone too far. Whether the answer is more staffing or fewer service expectations could eventually determine whether passengers begin to see what the crews already do.
With Hawaiian crews now flying Dreamliners to Europe for Alaska, do you wonder what Hawaiian Airlines might have become if it had remained independent?
By Rob and Jeff, Beat of Hawaii.
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There was no way Hawaiian Airlines could survive after Covid with the economic pressures and the horrible management decisions made through the years.
IMHO the only way Hawaiian Airlines could survive would have been to be an inter-island regional airline, owned by one of the big three, most likely United, who could have easily integrated HA’s Pacific/Asian flights into UA’s extensive Pacific and Asian network. UA has been serving Hawaii for nearly 80 years, they could have made it work, but obviously weren’t interested in taking on HA’s huge debt and other problems.
Aloha to all.
If you read Reddit or FB groups customers notice the lack of service between AS international flights and other airlines. Everything from menu to beverage service has had issues. Even a pax needing medical attention and FA’S ignoring it. Not to be down on Hawaiian FA’S, but they are doing purposeful work slowdown on international routes. Alaska is driving away long-term pax with their business and premium economy service. The Premium Economy seats are the same as the economy seats. There is nothing premium. It’s quite sad that Hawaiian FA’S are taking their frustrations out on customers by not even offering water a number of times.
If not for covid combined with inept management, Hawaiian Airlines would have continued to grow and prosper, spreading Aloha worldwide as only our flight attendants could.
The flight attendants in first class with 9 passengers per can keep it up. The attendants in the back will burn out so fast. Plus, now they have to put up with the different sections in the back…different treatment for some which makes those in the “lower class” seats ask for things, which puts the attendant on the spot of having to explain and keep it “nice”. In the stone ages when I used to fly alot, you had first class and a partition and the rest. The Stewardesses treated everyone as if they were the only one on the plane. Real food, silverware, magazines, blanket or pillow and conversation. And many of them were nurses or medically trained. They were respected.
That’s how all international airlines work though! There are three to four classes of service per aircraft.
All international flights have three or four classes of service.
All companies, including Alaska Airlines, will always place profit ahead of customer or employee satisfaction. That concept is baked in to corporate capitalism. It’s won’t ever change. If you’re surprised, you haven’t been paying attention.
If profit takes precedent, then why did Alaska took away the FC/BC bidding that Hawaiian used to have for their longhaul flights? A friend who works at Alaska said they give the BC seats first to non-rev over elite customers, except titanium, so if profit came first wouldn’t they keep bidding to get more revenue?
Hawaiian would have gone the way of Aloha airlines if it remained independent: bankrupt!
I feel for the employees. I’ve had nothing but positive experiences on Hawaiian. I’ve been a long time customer of both airlines, and they’ve been good with both. Do I wish Hawaiian could have stayed the way it did? Absolutely. Is that realistic? No. The race to the bottom puts a lot of pressure on the airlines. Wall street’s expectations put a lot of pressure on the airlines (not that private equity is better – it is worse).
Hawaiian Air was already bankrupted in debt $900 million under the owner in greed, ripped off the revenues, blocked and denied pay raises of under paid below standard salaries of pilots, attendants, ground crews, staffs, and administrators, they went on strike and got substandard raises. He sold a broke Hawaiian Air for $1.9 billion, paid off the $900,000 debt and profited a cool $1 billion. Sounds corrupted engineered greedy with a collaborated coconsoirator of Alaska Air. I knew back when the sale was announced it was a dirt deal. Alaska said it would run both separately and Hawaiian Air would be the same airlines. I knew it was a lie. Alaska took over all aircraft, repainted it to Alaska Air new green deal with the name logo ONE WORLD. Alaska is not Alaskan nor Native Alaskan Natives, run out of Seattle. Hawaiian Air paint scheme, colors and logo image all gone, Alaska never had any big aircrafts, mostly 737’s. Alaska never had any long haul flights, they stole all flights.
One World is an alliance. It’s not a brand.