Problems included no online reservations, check-in, or mobile app since Wednesday, resulting from a mangled software upgrade.
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35 thoughts on “Reminiscent of Southwest: Hawaiian Airlines Debacle Delayed 830 Flights”
Problems included no online reservations, check-in, or mobile app since Wednesday, resulting from a mangled software upgrade.
This was the last straw for me and HI airlines. They are just a disaster, and have completely lost touch with their high rev customers, as far as service and benefits. This mess caused a canceled flight, endless delays on the others (to and from ITO), long lines to check in, and to finally add insult to injury, they not only insisted in charging me for a single overweight bag (If I ever fly them again I will bring 2 empty suitcases, and let them handle 2 instead of 1) and couldnt figure out How to charge me for the bag, so that made my wait at the check in counter even longer. So, I am giving away what few miles I have left, canceling the credit card, and not renewing premier club. I’m taking my money elsewhere.
I flew from JFK to ITO on April 20th. No boarding pass via app, 1 1/2 hour flight delay annnounced, 3 hour actual delay, no communication at the gate, not nearly enough seats at Gate 23B for all waiting passengers, 50 minutes on tarmac to reset entertainments system. Only good thing: connecting flight ALSO delayed more than a hour, so I made it! Cabin crew were fabulous, but the experience was awful. Hawaiian used to be the gold standard — but it’s been awful for at least a month. I have several friends who have missed medical appointments in Honolulu because of long long delays. I have another Hawaiian mainland flight coming up and will be looking at alternative airline 🙁 Please, Hawaiian, get back to your on-time with Aloha service.
I flew Sat 4/22 (ogg>hnl>san)-it was a complete nightmare.They didn’t have my flight
confirmed as an “actual” ticket and I spent 5 hours on the phone with them the day
before trying to get that fixed + totally new and different Conf.Codes. They tried to
blame me saying I asked for a refund on Jan.11th (the actual day I bought the tix!)At
ogg I was at checkin with 5 agents for 1 1/2 hours (2 Amadeus & 3 HA) attempting to fix this & no ability to print out my boarding pass.They told me to try and get it fixed at hnl. Really? So glad I spent $2k on 1st class to be treated like that. Flown with them forever, even got their credit card to save points for trips. Looking elsewhere from now on. Big disappointment, no aloha spirit, no compensation.
No future trips are showing when signed in to Hawaiian Miles.
Cannot add future trips on the website or on the app
We will see how HA responds:
Do they treat this as a public relations problem?
or do they apologize, fix the problems and improve customer service?
I am not sure why you are reporting that customers were not aware that the res system upgrade was going to occur. Hawaiian sent out an email to its customers prior to the upgrade. Pualani Elite members also received a second email a few days before the upgrade. It has also been know to Pualani Elite members for over a year that the new res system was set to be implemented in April. Yes it has been a debacle and yes there should have been more information provided via Facebook. Any Pualani Elite members reading this if you are not part of our dedicated Facebook group “Hawaiian Airlines Pualani Elite” I recommend you join us.
Not really. 830 HAL delays compared to SWA, more than 16,700 flights cancelled, 2 million passengers delayed during a major holiday is reminisicent? SWA lost track of their flight crews. threatened to fire employees for calling in sick, and why? Because SWA’s antiquated systems do not support their operations properly and haven’t for a long time as they did not want to invest the money to upgrade. Why did 830 Hawaiian flights get delayed? Because Hawaiian IS upgrading their passenger system for the future playing the long game to support the future (and did not do it during a major holiday) and serve their passengers better going forward. Hawaiian invested in this specifically to avoid a meltdown in the future like Southwest.
Another data point in the technology issued mentioned in the article was SWA’s April firewall issue, where they had to ask the FAA to put a ground stop to all of their flights, delaying 1,820 flights that day. I doubt the DOT will ask HAL about their issues as they were somewhat foreseen for good reason. As everyone, customers included, rely on technology it also makes everyone susceptible to its failures, and changing over systems is no small feat. I flew from Maui to Honolulu Thursday, it was slightly delayed, however they had folks from the company in purple t-shirts who came out and volunteered to help get through the check-in…I have never seen that from another airline. I am sure they will get through it and be better for it.
Btw, as you said, apples and oranges comparing to SWA. HA was a one time upgrade to the ticketing process that was handled poorly. Good thing it’s done though. SWA is a system wide failure of the technology required to run an airline , operations, crew scheduling etc. They cut corners to save money and the issue is far from behind them. SWA’s issue is a ticking time bomb that can surface at any time unexpectedly. Their business model of being cheap has bit them and raises questions about what else are they cutting corners on
Hi John.
We concur about the distinct differences in what happened. The similarities we see are that airlines are much more vulnerable than we expect or hope for and how just how bad it can go so wrong when something does occur.
Aloha.
Yes, it’s a bit scary how easily meltdowns can happen and just how dependent on the internet we have become……I get a sinking feeling if I misplace my cell phone for 10 mins!
As good as Hawaiian is they sure dropped the ball this time. My theory?…..it’s a very common thing in all the Hawaii business community, not just HA. Different departments are poor at communicating to each other. In Hawaii people like to “protect” their serfdoms and this results in poor intra-department communication….sounds like a case of that to me. Could have been handled much better however the website appears great now and a needed upgrade is in place.
On Sunday the 16th the old website was having multiple problems related to
flight from PDX to LIH via OCG on the 18th.
1. Our confirmation code was not recognized.
2.Then when I used our ticket #, the website said our reservations were cancelled.
3. On Monday morning the 17th, we were able to check in via the website
although it took 3 attempts.
I agree with the poster who said a fairly high corporate official decided to save money by reducing the amount testing.
Truly unfortunate!