747FC

Meanwhile, those who can use a more attractive FFP, will. As a UA Gold, I am able to get confirmed E+ seats and free F upgrades when available. Last trip to Mainland, got free F on both legs.

Alex909

This is why I would like to ask Hawaiian to consider tasking a product manager role to look into whether selling first class- and E+ seats *at all cost* is truly the best thing for them to do in order to maximize revenues over time. "They feel" may be based on simple corporate inertia rather than on any kind of analysis. (As it so often happens in larger companies.) The problem as I see it is that few Hawaiian employees who would be in a position to decide anything ever travel much on the competition. As such, they have no idea how far ahead Alaska Air is not only in their frequent flyer program, but also in many other smaller and larger aspects of their operation. I travel on three airlines every week (Alaska MVP Gold, Hawaiian Plat 75k, Air China Phoenix Miles Gold) and I could easily give a long list. Even Air China outshines Hawaiian in the treatment of us regulars in many ways. (Ask me for details if interested.)

Not so. Since I abandoned using Hawaiian on mainland flights and joined their FFP program 4 years ago, Alaska Air has not cut a single elite benefit for me. In fact, they sent us a lengthy email explaining that they were *not* going to cut benefits when others (Delta and United) changed their programs last year. This was during a period of high oil prices. Now, airlines are raking in record profits as oil prices look to stay under $50/bbl. And the HA stock is at record levels.

Zacnlinc

Think I recently read in a UA thread the analogy that hits home well for me with regards to elites and upgrading. The long story short version was comparing the fact that we all shop at our favorite (shops) and perhaps have "elite-ish perks" for being a frequent shopper. But do you expect to get free goods all the time when you shop there?

My personal take on things is that I'm happy with the bonus miles and not expecting an upgrade anytime these days. But when it comes to spending those miles, I do try to do it in style indeed. One has to be flexible as those free seats up front are a hard catch sometimes on the days you want them!!

Alex909

Zacnlinc, based on your description you live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area, come to Hawaii a few times a year, and are much more of a casual flyer than me. (I was in your exact situation until 2003.) Your priority are miles and spending them "in style". But those of us who live in Hawaii and have (fortunately or unfortunately) locked ourselves down by buying property and having local spouses with jobs here, but work elsewhere, have very different needs. We have no choice -- we are constantly on those planes. Things that seem small for more casual flyers can easily be huge for us.

Why don't we just buy upgrades? Often we do. But, our clients or their expense departments often do not reimburse us for first class- or E+ seats. And if you are self-employed like me, you have to be nimble during periods of fewer contracts, can splurge at other times, but you are always flying.

So we end up stuck next to crying babies, chatty vacationers, extremely overweight people, smelly food for hours and hours. Try preparing a client presentation, going over some engineering specs, or trying to catch some sleep ahead of a critical meeting in these conditions! Alaska takes all that pain away from weekly fliers like us, while still being attractive for people like you where you might go only 3-4 times per year. Hawaiian does not seem to know, or care, that several kinds of us regulars exist. They are still stuck in a model where their FFP predominantly targets the interisland flyer, such as construction- or government worker, who simply commutes to Oahu and needs standby and occasional first upgrades for 20-30 min flights. At the same time, they are now an international carrier, but their org. and mindset just can't seem to catch up with it.

With Hawaiian I am forced to harrass stressed out gate employees trying to close a flight at T-1h every other day for getting one of these otherwise gapingly open E+ seats. Or struggle with the call center in Manila for seat upgrades when on a poor phone line in China or when I am on the move in a taxi or train. Ever tried changing a ticket on HA at the last minute, especially international? Make sure you have at least 45 minutes on a clear phone line and be ready to shell out several hundred dollars on the spot. I'm doing this several times a month... Alaska? 3 clicks on a mobile app and no change fees. (MVP Gold level.) Air China? 5 clicks on even better mobile app, some change fees. I am glad to post screen shots and call logs for anyone interested.

we regulars do not consider E+ upgrades or even First upgrades to be "free goods" at all, because the direct competition has been offering them to us consistently. (Unlike in your example, and as many keep pointing out on this forum.) And because we regularly overpay on the routes we fly in order to stay with Hawaiian (or Alaska, in my case, for mainland routes) when other cheaper carriers (e.g. China Eastern, Hainan, Korean, Asiana) are also available. Even Delta and United often have lower fares on many Far East routes than Hawaiian now. I also regularly fly unpopular routes and help fill planes during low season. (Being self employed, I have more flexibility than most in my routing and timing.) For example, I have been a regular on Hawaiian's Beijing, Chitose, Seoul, and Fukuoka (defunct) service for years when passengers were, lets say, sparse.

Just a quick annecdote from the trenches to illustrate the psychology involved. Recently I ran into another regular on Hawaiian's HNL/HND service, an entrepreneur. He was totally livid after fighting with a less than compassionate gate employee over an E+ seat. His tourism business had spent $150k on page long inflight magazine ads that month alone. Pulled out the Hawaiian Japanese language inflight magazine from the seat jacket in front of me and angrily pointed at his ad. "Do you think after THIS I would get some loyalty?" He had very few good things to say about other aspects of Hawaiian's FFP.

LIH Prem

I agree with you, their corp culture is not geared towards road warriors, especially on transpac routes. They are geared towards leisure flyers and seem to be going after tour groups.

I realized this a long time ago for other reasons (2.5 hour MCT imposed on flyers when returning from a transpac in HNL with no flexibility on changing to an earlier i/i flight without paying $$$ .. I even wrote to them about it and got back essentially an unapologetic response showing they didn't understand the issue at all for people that can get through imm/customs in 10 minutes) and haven't flown a transpac with them since then.

Why are you sticking with them? Their FF program kind of sucks anyway.

Do you take the miles or the bag credit at Foodland? Do you think the 3 miles are worth more than 5 cents? I take the miles, but I know the cash would (arguably) be the better deal. It's close I suppose. I feel good if I can get 1 cent a mile out of my HA miles.

-David

747FC

Why are you choosing to overpay to stay with Hawaiian? You note all of the limitations when flying with them...

Alex909

Thank you for asking.

Yes, if I proceeded purely analytically then I should have stopped flying them a long time ago. But, I feel very uneasy to analyze and judge an organization like a scientific institution. To me, an organization is more like a theather play that has to be produced well, a play in which people want to participate, because it gives their life meaning. I may be hard in my criticism here, but it is because I care about Hawaiian. Ideally, I would love to add my mite to help make the play even more exciting. I live right next to an airport and see their planes take off and land all the time. My neighbors work for them. Some of my most precious memories are from abord HA planes, talking story with the Korean and Japanese flight crews and quizzing unsuspecting pilots in seat 3C about FBW control law reconfigurations. (I spent a semester at Airbus Industries.) Just like the land, the sea, the sky, the neighbors, Hawaiian is part of my aina. And so I care about them.

It is said that an organization connects an idea. As LIHPREM pointed out, Hawaiian today mainly connects mass-based corporate tourism and that comes at a cost! Of course, tourism is part of the larger context of living in Hawaii, and incredibly profitable, but it comes as a cost as both kanaka 'oiwi and Hawaii residents are bound to the instability of a tourist economy. An overreliance on tourism influences our identity by appropriating our cultural capital (ie. Hula, language, traditional images), paving our lands with concrete, and draining our natural resources. (In 2012, Hawaii was visited by 8 Million tourists, six times as many as Hawaii residents.)

I want to add my mite so that Hawaiian can someday be about more than just mass-based tourism and go beyond "happy natives ready to serve tourists". We need to resurrect the dream of Hawaii as a true economic and cultural Pacific connecting hub between the continental US and the peoples of China, Korea, and Japan. We need to develop our own knowledge industries and culture exchange centers. There is no hub without transportation and Hawaiian is in an ideal position to connect the net. I'd like to think that entrepreneurs like us, who are often fluent in the cultures and languages of Silicon Valley and/or Beijing/Seoul/Tokyo, can help it do so. I want Hawaiian to start venturing outside its comfort zone and start listening to us, who are already living the Hub today. Let us help improve the program, provide a platform for us road warriers, help us succeed, and we will grow to provide stability when the inevitable tourism downturns happen.

Am I a hopeless romantic or idealist for trying?

Troopers

Another data point.

Last wk, offered $200/seat for 3 seats HNL-OAK and was rejected. Side note, the A330 was swapped out with an old 767.

747FC

You are quite eloquent, romantic and idealistic. And so too are many people trapped in abusive relationships: They remember the good times and minimize the pain caused by the abuser. They make excuses for the abuser's behavior. They think just because they care about the abuser, that the abuser cares about them.

That being said, many people (who can afford it) pay a premium to businesses that make us feel good while we are being overcharged. I'd rather go to a restaurant that makes me feel that they value my business than one which hardly seems to know that I have arrived or departed. However, I don't care more about the "relationship" with the "feel-good" restaurant than they care about me.

Being committed to the local community is also a 2-way street. How committed was HA when they moved their call center to the Philippines?

So why do you fly Alaska instead of Hawaiian?

formeraa

Well, it still remains to be seen what AS does once they introduce their Y+ section. On the 738's, they are reducing the number of F seats from 16 to 12, in essence reducing the chance of Elite upgrades. So, there may or may not be an explicit change to the program, but AS is doing small things that could be interpreted as reducing Elite benefits.

As for HA, they have done a great job of trying to sell their product. I applaud them for not giving away the F seats.

Alex909

Hi Formeraa, the reasoning at Alaska is as follows:

Meanwhile, Alaska added Japan Airlines as a new partner! This is hugely attractive because we are now able to secure E+ seats all the way from the West Coast to HND/NRT/KIX/ICN/PEK months ahead of departure, with one click on a mobile app, free of charge.

No offense, but the very mindset -- often prevalent among airline employees and executives -- that Alaska might be "giving away" anything by providing us road warriers with complimentary upgrades to F and E+ is the core of the problem! It pits us, your most loyal customers, against you. The genius of Alaska's FFP program is the recognition that the whole can be greater than the sum of the parts:

"Every man who becomes rich by competition throws down behind him the ladder by which he rises, and keeps others down; but every man who gets rich by creation opens a way for thousands to follow him, and inspires them to do so."

formeraa

Hi Alex --

I think you have taken the AS blurb on 12F seats out of context. It HAS been confirmed that AS is reconfiguring all of their 737-800's to 12F with a few more inches of pitch and also adding a Premium Economy section (which I referred to as "Y+". See http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...300187749.html.

Furthermore, when I said that HA was trying to sell its F seats, I was NOT inferring that AS did not. I was just saying that HA was exercising good business sense. In fact, AS has gotten more aggressive at trying to sell its F seats. I just purchased two r/t F tickets from PHX to SEA for $425 each, which I think is a fair price for F. But the result will be far fewer seats left for free Elite upgrades.

Finally, a few months ago, I saw a job listing for AS to design a revenue management strategy for First Class. All airlines, including HA, are trying to maximize revenue from the premium cabins. It will be even more important for HA as they put in a true long-haul premium seat.

747FC

Wow..where did you see that job listing? Quite a specific one...

Wild_Fire_HI

No, it is more than showing how unimportant we are. It is more like laughing at us and to think the Platinum loyalty actually means something to their marketing and management. I give the example of the longest check-in lines in Vegas continues to be the First Class and Gold/Platinum while we are served by just one agent who is constantly interrupted and having to go over and assist the other agents who need computer help. The last three trips out of Vegas I have taken pictures and complained about the premium line out the door of the airport. Their answer, well stand in the regular line. We don't care!

formeraa

It was on alakaairlines.com under "Careers". Since I used to work in the airline industry and would eventually like to move back to SEA, I keep an eye on possible jobs there. And, yes, this particular job description was very specific (though honestly I was thinking that it sounded like an interesting job, not thinking about customer impact at the time).