Waivers Available for Hawaii Flights

Skyline of Honolulu, Hawaii and the surrounding area including the hotels and buildings on Waikiki Beach

There’s a hurricane on the way to Hawaii—Hurricane Lane—and in response, various airlines are offering some waivers to help make reservation changes easier. But what exactly are those waivers? What do they mean and what does someone who takes advantage of one gain from using it to rebook their flight?

Hurricane Lane is on the prowl, barreling toward already waterlogged Hawaii and threatening to disrupt flights all around the islands. In response, most airlines have put waivers in place to protect travelers in case they need to reschedule. But what does that really mean?

Generally, waivers put out by an airline mean that some sort of fee is not going to apply when a change needs to be made to a ticket. For the Hawaii flights, right now there’s a waiver that eliminates the $200 change fees that are normally charged when a hurricane isn’t bearing down and flyers want to swap out their flights for different ones.

Airlines flying into the hurricane zone have also opted to include another waiver in the offerings, which stops extra “gotcha” costs for booking a flight at the last minute, SF Gate reported. Essentially, booking a flight last minute tends to cost a lot more than booking one in advance, so as long as these new flights are booked within the airline’s timeframe, it’ll cost just as much as it would have to buy the advance fare.

Waivers, though, do not cover refunds. So if you decide just to cancel your flight to Hawaii because of the hurricane, you can’t recoup the cost of your ticket. Refunds are only available if the airline itself cancels the flight or it’s subjected to an excessive delay.

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