Awful legroom and embarrassing “food” on one hand. A lovely widebody plane, a unique solid Hawaii brand, and on-time performance on the other. Hawaiian Airlines economy review plus Extra Comfort.
Awful legroom and embarrassing “food” on one hand. A lovely widebody plane, a unique solid Hawaii brand, and on-time performance on the other. Hawaiian Airlines economy review plus Extra Comfort.
Seat back screens never work for my husband who is 6’4″. He can never get the right angle without fully(?) reclining and totally slouching in his seat. Of course, then he has even Less legroom!
I Sooo prefer Alaska Air v Hawaiian. Hawaiian Air has a habit (for my last 3 flights with them in the last 16 months) to claim “system glitches” when not having TSA numbers registered, or sending e-mails about my flights (2) being cancelled (when they weren’t), and trying to resolve issues via their Chat is impossible. Eventually getting a rep on the phone only to get the excuse it was a “computer glitch, try again” is infuriating.
And your review about their food is absolutely spot on.Horrible..several fellow passengers were mocking it.
Direct non-stop flights from Sacramento to Maui, Kona or Kaua are currently limited to HA as the choice. Forget Hawaii…Caymen Island seems easier.
As a Pualani Platinum member my experience is a bit different. Extra comfort is complementary at check in. 80% of the time I get upgraded. 20% of the time I get upgraded to 1st class.
That being said 2 weeks ago spent over 10 hours in economy from Bos to Hnl. There really is no way to say it. It sucked. Like Jeff, I am 6 ft tall. Leg room is non existent.
As a HA credit card holder Jeff could have used his $10 credit to buy a beer or a Mai tai. Alcohol makes flights go faster.
You are always berating the call center. Filipinos are great people and do much of the work here in Hawaii. My experiences with them at call centers have been very good.
Another great article.
Hi Kelly.
Thanks for your many comments and happy travels!
Aloha.
Hi guys! Hope you’re doing well. Mahalo for all you do. So, I’m thinking HA only had three attendants because they can’t fill the positions? Re: extra comfort, it used to be $80. Period. I have DVT, so I need to be able to stretch my legs out, do stretches, etc. $80 extra is tolerable. $142 is insulting. Shame on them. And that bagel roll? I guess I’ll be packing my own lunch unless I use my points for first class. All of these changes are so disappointing, as I only fly Hawaiian (staying loyal). Mahalo.
Hi Claudia.
First, thank you so much for your comments over nearly five years! They did have the full number of flight attendants on the plane. And we too were in shock about the value proposition relative to the $142 extra legroom on the five-hour flight.
Aloha.
Actually the flight had to have had at least six flight attendants according to FAA regulations, which require one FA for every 50 passenger Seats or portion. In other words and aircraft with 100 seats must have 2 FA on board, while an aircraft with 102 is required to have 3. The number of passengers is not the determining factor it is seats. Hawaiian, nor any decent airline, would not take the chance of an aircraft departing with fewer than the required number of FAs on board. The FAA would come down way to hard on them. I did love a flight we had to Maui just when things began to crack open during the pandemic. An A-330 with 278 seats, only 63 passengers and 6 FAs on board!
I paid additional $200+ to sit in Extra Comfort each way from BOS to HNL and HNL to JFK.
Weight Watchers meals taste better than the sweet and sour sauce smothered frozen veg with white rice.
A shame about Hawaiian’s service. For years, we traveled exclusively on Hawaiian because of the superior experience. Even when we had to endure change of planes at HNL. Now they’re bettered by – gasp – Southwest? And upgraded economy is illusory?
Hawaiian airlines offers a chance to bid for a first-class upgrade if there is availability on your flight, I’ve been upgraded by offering a $260 bid, this is in addition to the cost of my already purchased economy ticket.
Hi. Thanks for your reviews. Have flown Hawaiian several times over the last year & agree the “food” is just terrible, even for free. $ 142 for comfort seats are a joke. No extra services for sure. Only redeeming quality is the service & reasonable price if purchased during their sales. I would be happy to pay for a better quality meal. Still great to go back to Hawaii though. Andy S
Hi Andy.
Enjoy your time in Hawaii! And thanks for the comments over the past nearly 13 years including this one on Hawaiian’s service. We really appreciate it.
Aloha.
For the amount of money you paid to get one more inch of legroom, and not much else, I would say that Hawaiian is either pulling a fast one on what “extra comfort” means to the unsuspecting traveler. Let’s face it, the seat is the same.exact.seat that you would sit in regular coach. I have never found the value of a “extra comfort” section to be all that its cracked up to be, and I only get it if I have enough status with the airline to “upgrade” me (like on American in the past when they did this model). A premium economy product to me is a revamp of the old Business Class section of a plane where you could get a more comfy seat for the same price as full fare coach. Let’ see if Hawaiian does better than that on its premium economy select.
I definitely buy EC seats on Hawaiian but I’ve noticed that now they are varying in costs depending on your route. The highest I’ve seen (from Bay Area) is $95. which I think is pushing it (before they were $80.00, so my jaw dropped when you said yours was $142, and I first thought you had meant roundtrip. But one way? No way.
That’s ridiculous especially compared to the extras they give on Delta.
I’ve seen $170 on my flights from Phoenix and they aren’t even the good EC seats.
thank you for your continued analysis of the flying cattle cars., it would appear that HA still is more interested in “packing them in” rather than promoting the Hawaiian Experience