Amid Hawaii’s travel storm sits latecomer Southwest Airlines. A look at the pros and cons of their curious presence in Hawaii.
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63 thoughts on “Southwest Airlines: Good Or Bad For Hawaii?”
Amid Hawaii’s travel storm sits latecomer Southwest Airlines. A look at the pros and cons of their curious presence in Hawaii.
disagree with your assessment of flight attendants being lackluster on Hawaiian. I flew Hawaiian a few years ago and it could not have been better. We flew economy. We are discussing going back to a different island and wont even call Southwest ( not that I have anything against them) I just know Hawaiian was a good experience and I feel it would be the same.
Aloha. I think saying southwest brings a “different type of visitor” is a bit unfair. I am a SWA stockholder, 28 year loyal customer, and proud parent of a SWA employee. Southwest’s entire culture is like Hawaii’s. Courtesy and respect are values drilled into every SWA employee. SWA cant nessecarily pick their customers, but they have no tolerance for snotty, unruly, or belligerent people. If you look at the incidents of rotten customers aboard airlines, no airlines are immune to the growing trend of entitled customers acting out on planes. It is reasonable to assume that good passengers make good visitors, and I believe Southwest provides both. Southwest treats all customers equally.(respectfully) Kamaaiana reciprocating??
DanJ,
You got it right.SWA is a great airline. A few bumps this holiday, but I think it was a wake-up call. A call that that will result in astonishing improvements that will shock their competitors.
Absolutely, I couldn’t have said it better.
SWA has a lot of good attributes and a history of taking good care of employees and passengers alike. But they are not the airline Herb created. They demonstrated a lot of arrogance with their predatory approach to the market…they came here throwing stones and not showing respect, so they certainly haven’t earned it. A ticket bought on Hawaiian supports the local economy, not so with SWA. That revenue leaves the state. Their inter island operation is also dispatched, maintained and crewed from the mainland. That creates all kinds of issues and not just when weather on the mainland disrupts their schedule. The list goes on, buy local fly local.
Just to be clear, I’m retired from the airline industry after a 40 year career and well connected here in Hawaii. When SWA started flying to Hawaii a well circulated photo of a large ceramic shark painted in SWA colors trying to devour two small fish painted in Alaska and HA colors adorned their office wall in OAK. Just because they smile, tell jokes and pat each other on the back doesn’t negate their true colors of predatory and arrogant behavior. Their marketing has been one of cultural appropriation and disrespect. DanJ, that’s typical SWA mentality asking if the people of Hawaii are being properly respectful of SWA. Auwe!
Your self-proclaimed qualifications seem to preclude any opinion.
Why bother?
Best of luck.
One of the joys of being retired is you get to cherry pick what’s interesting to you. I still enjoy staying connecting to the industry without the burden of employment!
Southwest made me visit my family in the Big Island more often. The low fares were really helpful when I had to go back and forth Honolulu and Hilo when my dad fell ill and was traveling 2x a week for about a month and with 2 free check in bags I was able to bring in boxes of frozen fish for the parents
Aloha. A fair treatment of Southwest. Thank you for objectivity in journalism!
Hi Dan.
Thanks for that.
Aloha.
I sure wouldn’t take Southwest to Hawaii. Hawaiian Airlines dores the job perfectly for me. No desire to change.
Southwest has been nothing but a nuisance to the state and major contributor to unsustainable tourism (SWA Effect). Looking forward to the day they will give up on Hawaii, just as they did with Newark. Southwest planes are planes are empty nowadays anyways in comparison to HAL interisland.
Why should they stop serving their customers?
Reminder: Hawaii is one of the 50 states and SWA and HA get to serve Americans wherever they are authorized to operate.
Try to not be a jingoist.