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.
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65 thoughts on “Review Of Hawaiian Airlines Economy + ExtraComfort on Wide-Body”
The food, I would give a 6/10 but if you give 2/10 then SWA would be a negative number, unless you are partial to pretzels (they do throw pretzels at you twice on their long range trips to Hawai’i), United better. FAA states how many FAs are required and no airline I have seen uses more than required by the FAA, so for 260…it would be 5 flight attendants. SWA planes have 3. Seat pitch is accurate in numbers, however SWA has much narrower seats, so for me I overlap in width, especially with another broad shouldered person, Hawaiian A330 is 1-2″ wider (cmfrt/extra) than SWA seats. I am 6’1″, leg room is fine on both, width not OK on SWA, maybe Jeff is taller and not as broad. Body types matter for this.
I recently flew out of Ontario, CA on HA79. Sorry, I forget what type of craft it is, but it was 3/3 seating with a very narrow center aisle. I had a window seat. I must admit that I always pray the middle seat goes unoccupied these days, for obvious reason. It unfortunately was occupied. Ever since Hawaiian restored the Ontario route it’s been the airport of choice for me. I cannot bear going through LAX any more. The walk from the check-in counter to the boarding gate is over 1 mile I’ve been told. This is insane. Insane. Passengers are not warned in advance of this, a major problem, especially for small children and the elderly. My 71 year old companion nearly stroked out getting to the gate. (to be continued)
Continuing… The food was a meh sausage sandwich. My seat felt cramped. My knees touched the seat in front of me and I’m not tall. The width of the seats was the usual, and when you realize you are shoulder2shoulder/butt2butt physically touching a stranger for 6 hours, it’s not ok. I hate being treated like just another piece of cargo that is loaded onto the plane. I hate flying now. It has become so uncomfortable that I no longer want to travel by air. Something must be done and soon. I imagine the airlines adding an upper row so they can double capacity. This awful treatment to human beings has become INhuman. I want something to be done about this, but what? If you can’t afford 1st class you must fly as cargo. It is no longer OK.
Hawaiian Airlines has the worst leg room unless you pay extra.
Southwest has the best and most leg room without paying extra
John,
The seat pitch on Hawaiian Airlines Economy is 31 inches. The seat pitch on Southwest is 31 inches. Oh! I think that means they are THE Same. If you doubt me, check SeatGuru.com. However if you are talking about inter-island and not flights to the mainland or Canada, I will agree that Hawaiian may be less as some of the B-717s have a 29 inch seat pitch, others have 31 inches. On most inter-island flights I can deal with 29 inches. The longest inter-island flight is only about 52 minutes.
Jim,
That’s actually incorrect. While seat pitch on Southwest’s 737-700s is roughly 31 inches, the pitch is 32-33 inches on their -800s and MAX 8s. Since only the MAX and -800 jets fly to Hawaii, Southwest does have greater seat pitch than the Hawaiian offerings in that scenario.
Jordan D., thank you for the correction!
I’m 5’1″ and would not do long haul flights without booking an extra comfort seat. In the regular economy seat, it’s impossible to reach your under-seat bag if the person in front of you has their seat reclined.
Variations in charges for add-ons like extra comfort are seemingly arbitrary. I changed my flight by one day and they wanted to charge me an additional $180 when I’d already paid $170 for that one-way extra comfort seat.
To end on a positive note, flight personnel are gracious and professional.
Here is something that will only be relevant for those in the greater Los Angeles area. It is a video I did, comparing flying from Long Beach to Kahului vs Los Angeles to Kahului comparing the differences in Extra Comfort and Main Cabin. Of course, the same comparision will hold for flights to Honolulu as the equipment is the same, A320s out of Long Beach, A-330s from Los Angeles. I am not a professional videographer and it is not a revenue producer, just something to help educate.
youtu.be/NbnBUTf6-wA
Great article & comments. We visit Maui annually, most recently in October, and will be in Kauai for the holidays. We preferred Hawaiian, primarily for the 2-4-2 configuration. As a couple, we dislike the 3-seat configurations that are typical in economy and EC. One of us has to be in the middle and it’s miserable. The seat configuration plus good food and friendly flight attendants made it a no-brainer to fly Hawaiian. Sadly, have to agree the food has gone downhill dramatically and the flight attendants are less engaged (but still courteous). We’ll be considering other carriers from now on. Alaska & Delta are eager to compete, among others.
I’m a 6’ tall woman, and cannot fit comfortably in an economy seat
I had been in a bad car accident two days before leaving to come home when entering the airport I asked if I could pay for closer seating as I was black & blue, 2 black eyes and 3 broken ribs. The airport attendant told me absolute not, wouldn’t even consider me paying for something to help me get home more comfortable. I was in a middle of 4 seats and had such a hard time getting out of the seat a man had to help me. Because of this I am done with Hawaiian.
Hi Jeff and the gang.
Have you come across this before? To preface, we moved to Maui last fall and I fly back to SFO often. On a 2 pm flight on Hawaiian this past March from OGG to SFO, a flight attendant announced shortly after take-off that we must close our window blinds for those on computers, phones, etc. This was a first for me on any *daytime* flight. I closed mine half-way, but then the person in the aisle seat told me to close it all the way. That’s a first too, but as the flight attendant had ordered it, I complied. Normally, I’d politely point out that I’d already closed it half-way, & that I wanted the some natural light (it’s also a safety bonus on a plane). I’ve since just flown Alaska ’cause of the daylight. Thoughts? Thanks!
Hi Lauren.
Yes, we’ve seen that before on Hawaiian. We can’t remember if that is true on all their flights or not. When they bring the Dreamliners onboard, they’ll be controlling the dimming of all of the windows electronically, so that will be the end of that. For better or worse.
Aloha.
Completely agree with all
Of your Comments .
Hawaiian has Lots of
Work to Improve