What New $199 Virgin America Hawaii Flights Mean to You

Aloha and e komo mai to Virgin America! It has finally happened. We’ve been reporting that Virgin America would be coming to Hawaii for years and today that prospect became a reality with some of the longest awaited flights in Hawaii aviation history.

The company announced this morning that service between San Francisco and Honolulu will commence in November followed by flights between San Francisco and Maui starting in December. This is competition with Hawaiian Airlines. Read on for what this is likely to mean in terms of Hawaii travel deals.

$199 Hawaii Vacation Deals

Today’s announcement came with $199 inaugural airfares starting November 2 to Honolulu and December 3 to Maui. These are valid until mid-December. Thanksgiving dates are mostly much higher. After mid-December, it’s high season in Hawaii and more expensive fares on Virgin are comparable with competitors.

Frequent Flyer – Elevate by Virgin

Starting tomorrow, Elevate (Virgin America’s frequent flyer program) members can redeem reward flights to Hawaii with no black-out dates starting at 8559 points.

Virgin America Aircraft

The new Hawaii flights will be operated on brand new Airbus A320 aircraft that the company is receiving this year.  They are being equipped with “sharklet” winglets to provide for fuel savings.

Competitive Analysis by Beat of Hawaii

Virgin America is entering an already crowded four-player San Francisco to Hawaii marketplace in a strategically measured way. With only one flight daily, it is the least invasive entry viable. In that way they will be putting their toe in the Hawaiian waters hopefully without tipping the proverbial boat. The inaugural $199 airfares have already been widely anticipated by the industry. Airfares to and from San Francisco have been dropping in part because it was known that Virgin America’s entry was inevitable. So again this pricing was a minimally invasive strategy. That in sharp contrast with the $99 airfares that Allegiant proffered upon their Hawaii entry, which in this case would only have served to cause an all out war within the playing field.

Our prediction is for far more frequent Bay Area to Hawaii airfare sales inaugurated by any of the carriers in the market place, and most likely by Hawaiian Airlines. Hawaiian has the most at stake in terms of west coast to Hawaii flights being all important. They will work to assert their position in the market.

It will take some time for the industry to settle down following Virgin America’s entry. Questions remain such as

• Will Virgin America increase their Hawaii flight frequency.
• Can we expect to see additional Hawaii flights added from Los Angeles.
• Is service to Kauai and Kona inevitable.
• How much of a disruptor will Virgin be due to their flight network’s ability to feed traffic from beyond San Francisco to Hawaii.

This good news for visitors is that this is just the beginning. Look for better than normal to much better than normal Hawaii airfares from all three bay area airports for the foreseeable future. Also watch for competitive pressure on pricing from all airports from which Virgin flies to San Francisco. Stay tuned for more.