Originally Posted by
Alex909
It would be interesting to attempt a "segmentation" of the most dominant groups of people on the Hawaii/Far East and Hawaii/Mainland routes in order to understand their seating needs and preferences. In my experience, there is tremendous diversity out there: Are you a once- or twice-a year vacationer to Hawaii or Japan? Are you Kamaaina traveling to Far East to explore your family roots or to visit family? An International student visiting home? Are you doing business in Far East, regularly, or only once a year? Or, are you a busy professional from New York or Tokyo taking several short "getaways" to Hawaii every year? I see all of these groups on HA flights regularly. I think you might have to have at least a rudimentary understanding of this diversity and the size and preferences of each group to design the optimal future Hawaiian cabin. My intuition is that copying other carriers lie flat would be sub-optimal, because Hawaiian has a unique segmentation due to its hubs being out in the middle between Hawaii and the "Far East". This might be a great opportunity to innovate and come up with something new that nobody else has, something that truly fits the unique audiences above.
Random to jump in here a couple months later Alex-but ive been thinking about this segmentation/opportunity since we were talking about the EC seats the other day and I had this page open on my iPad.
Right now, an Extra Comfort seat from JFK-HNL is $1026 rt(776rt plus $250 for EC seats and that price seems to be fairly stable. I haven't really looked at the West Coast flights tbh because they'll be A321Neo's soon enough but i'll just assume there's a good bit of competition out that way and that you can get sub $500 RT's in economy on occasion.
As for designing the HA cabin of the future. I think they've got a really good opportunity with the new planes to do a TRUE premium economy. For instance-take me: I'm a 1-2x(if I'm lucky 2x) a year or 1 every other year LESIURE traveller to Hawaii. When I book airline tix (VX/HA/B6) on any of the carriers I tend to fly-I ALWAYS go for the Main cabin Select, the EMS, or Extra Comfort. I'd GLADLY pay an extra $200-300 (say $1300-1400 RT or a bit more) to get similar seating/food/service that's the current HA first/biz class as a "true" SQ/CX/LH type premium economy.
In my head-if Hawaiian is going for the biz/leisure/cheap deal market, they've got a great chance to split the differences through the cabin while making everyone "happy" so to speak. Their current main cabin offering is nice-better than most in pitch and the fact that you get food on long hauls! Their extra comfort has more legroom and is even better, with the same service food wise, plus a free tv pack. The first class-well, reading this thread, most FTers aren't impressed.
My suggestions would be to configure as follows:
-Move the current first class back to the row 13 bulkhead and add a row or two making it a true premium Econ product with the upgraded meals and recliners.
-Once the recliners are moved back-put in 10-12(or as many as will fit) herringbone style lie flats up front(assuming they can fit that many while pushing back the current first) they could charge upwards of $5000 for the lie flats I'd think(basing that on my peek at UA's EWR-HNL service) $1300-1500rt give or take(probably take) for the premium Econ recliners.
-When that's done-IF it's POSSIBLE to do in the "back 9" they could put in a number of rows with current Extra Comfort pitched seating (14/34 already have EC pricing iirc) in for the ancillary revenue at $125 or whatever it might be up to by then each way. They're obviously on to something if they've jacked up the Extra Comfort within a year and change of launch. I'd assume it's selling like hotcakes since they raised it. But the question for them as far as the first/premium Econ is HOW much would the "premium leisure" folks like me pay to get a NOT quite first but still MUCH better than economy product. If I'm basing it on today's JFK-HNL prices of ~$3200rt in first and $1026 in economy, I'd go up to 15-1600rt personally for a TRUE premium economy a-la SQ's new offerings. Having not been in first for a long while, or ever having paid for first, I don't know what they could get for a lie flat-but I know there's definitely untapped demand for premium economy-think about it... What percentage are honeymooners and couples doing a "big" trip to HI? If it's ~50% or so, I'd wager a guess that maybe 1/3-1/2 of that 50% would drop $ on the premium economy but not first...
Just my two cents-I'd love to hear your ideas! And thanks again for the info on 11C the other day.