Southwest Airlines’ Hawaii presence is at a turning point, with changes that could significantly impact island travel.
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45 thoughts on “The Next Shoe To Drop In Hawaii Travel: Southwest?”
Southwest Airlines’ Hawaii presence is at a turning point, with changes that could significantly impact island travel.
We live a few months at a time in Maui and then return to the mainland for a fews months, all year long. We are older and hate red eye flights as we don’t sleep at all sitting upright, like so many people seem to be able to do.
Therefore, we prefer Southwest and their daytime flights too and from the mainland!!
Southwest gate dominance on the West Coast could prove valuable for all traveling from there. Arizona and Utah have a large Hawaiian travel population. Suppose they upgrade interiors, seating, and food. Remember the West Coast was the Hot spot for Hawaiian travel, when they started bringing all those other states visitors, things went to shit for everyone.
One thing that has been challenging for Southwest is its gate position at HNL. Keep in mind this – the interisland market is one that is like a bus operation – get in, get out for passengers in a quick way. Right now with SWA at the Central Concourse, they are at a disadvantage due to the way that terminal is. The interisland one works for that market better than the main transpacific terminal. Other airlines figured this out before starting operations and made sure that they got space at the HNL interisland terminal. SWA has not been able to make that move and I think that is a hindrance to any future growth for them.
According to airline industry news, that was a deliberate decision by
SWA due to the high value of main terminal gate space .
Even though it makes them lose more money on inter island flights, keeping the inter island flights in the main terminal protects the gate space which gives SWA more flexibility to schedule fights to and from the mainland.
I read the same article, and on the surface with no other factor at play, that makes sense. However, with the new Mauka extension of the Interisland Terminal and that taken over by Hawaiian in whole cloth, I am sure that there is the ability to reassign the old “Aloha wing” of the Interisland terminal to Southwest. After all, Aloha was able to use those gates for both interisland and transpac service using planes that are about the same as the one’s Southwest uses now.