We’re starting to hear from passengers about two severely delayed Hawaiian Airlines flights. One took place over the weekend while the other one took place just yesterday.
New York to Honolulu flight delayed over 30 hours.
In the most recent incident, the daily flight from New York to Honolulu HA 51 does not appear to have operated yesterday at all. On FlightAware, there is no indication of what happened. We are reaching out to Hawaiian Airlines for any further update on the cause of the problem. We do see that there are some flight delays out of New York due to weather, but delays of that extraordinary nature aren’t being reported.
Passengers told a local New York TV station that they were left stranded at the airport for over 30 hrs. And that was confirmed through multiple sources. Passengers said that during the entire time they waited, they were only offered a food voucher for $12. It was also reported that passengers weren’t offered accommodations, rerouting on other airlines, nor were they allowed to retrieve baggage in order to switch to other airlines’ flights on their own. Hawaiian Airlines said that they are working with the passengers who were affected in order to make things right.
Delta Airlines also flies nonstop on the same route from New York’s JFK to Honolulu.
We cannot confirm reports that the cause of the delay was a mechanical problem with the Airbus A330-200 aircraft related to a problem with air vents.
Hawaiian’s Las Vegas to Honolulu flight was delayed over 24 hours this weekend.
A similar duration but unrelated flight delay occurred for passengers traveling from Las Vegas to Honolulu, when their flight encountered maintenance issues resulting in a delay of some 26 hrs.
Flightaware indicates that Hawaiian flight HA5 never operated at all on Friday. Due to mechanical issues, the aircraft underwent maintenance at Las Vegas. As a result of that delay, the available flight crew “timed out” and were no longer able to fly. Passengers were accommodated on Saturday’s flight instead. FlightAware says that the flight arrived in Honolulu following a delay of 27 hours.
On that flight it was reported that issues included a tire repair as well as a fuel leak. In that incident, passengers are reporting that they received both food vouchers and hotel vouchers from Hawaiian. Some did complain, however, that there was inadequate information provided them by the airline.
I was on HA47 on 7/13/23 OAK to HNL. The scheduled departure was 8:35 AM. During the preflight maintenance check kit was determined there was an issue with the engine. Around 11 AM, it they decided to delay the flight to 11:15 PM using the incoming plane from HA48. They did issue food vouchers and hotel rooms. I inquired about rebooking to the next day which they would do at no charge but they wouldn’t release my luggage. I then had no choice but to fly out later that night. By the time we pushed back from the gate we hit the 15 hour delay mark.
We’ve heard of the issues with their A 321 neo. So what’s up with their A 330 fleet?
That explains it. I came into OAK on HA48 on 7/13 after my original HA12 HNL to SFO was cancelled. Was wondering why there were so many travellers at the gate.
HA is indeed experiencing a lot of equipment problems. My July 13 HNL/SFO flight HA12 was scheduled to depart at 1:15 PM. At 9:15 AM, I received an equipment change notification. The wide body A330 will be replaced by a single aisle A321. I quickly logged into the website and downloaded new boarding passes showing my seat assignment on the replacement aircraft. At 9:30 AM, I received notification that the flight had been cancelled.
A quick check of the website confirmed it. I immediately called the reservations department and accepted a seat on the HNL/OAK flight leaving at 12:20 PM. Although I requested to be placed on another airline’s flight to SFO, I was told that operations had not yet issued authorization permitting rerouting of affected passengers on other airlines. Though my experience was nowhere near what the NYC and LAS folks endured, I feel their pain. I was fortunate to have gotten home in a timely fashion though having to rush to the airport for a flight leaving an hour earlier and having to find ground transportation to get home from OAK. HA did promise me reimbursement for the ground transportation from OAK, but I got 5 different claim procedures from 5 different HA agents. That story will be for another day.
We were delayed 13 hours on HA 3 on April 22. Given the above story and the impact of delays on hotels, children, arrangements, appointments etc, I hope the airline does not calculate number of delay hours per total flights and say it’s good and do nothing. I would like to hear more on what is being done and not the “sorry’s for the inconvenience”. It’s time to expect operational excellence at the 99.9% levels!