Worth noting the $34 point, which confirms what AZ Travels mentioned in the other thread -- that at least they only charge the interisland rate. Eight bucks is eight bucks! That's nearly a gallon of gas on Maui.

I'm sure this is pretty significant revenue for HA. Who travels to Hawaii with only carry ons? Basically, they've found a way to get revenue for elites and F travelers flying over-ocean on non-HA flights, since they have the inter-island market cornered.

The interline thing is a real drag. I guess the good news is there are so many inter-island flights to HNL that it's usually easy just to pick one 30 minutes earlier. Hopefully, they will figure out a good system in HNL to do this -- like a dedicated bag check in desk or something for the big carriers. The place it might be a drag is for people flying direct to the mainland from OGG. If you're flying HA from, say, LIH to OGG and then connecting to US's OGG to PHX red eye fight, OGG is not the place you really want to be collecting bags, checking them, and re-clearing security in the pre-red eye period if you don't have some extra time. I think AA, US and maybe another all have flights around the same time and things can get a little backed up. (Although, I'm basing that on the very small sample size of the times I've been there, which are only a few.)

I once had to collect bags and recheck on a flight home from hawaii and it really stunk. Better than having to do it on the way there, I guess.