The AS-HA deal has a ways to go, but appears to be on track and could plausibly close late this year. While HawaiianMiles is a pretty poor program overall, it has its moments, and even where it isn't competitive, it has some customers hooked that AS wants to keep. Some thoughts and speculations on a holiday afternoon (Kuhio Day; hard luck for the rest of you):

• Mileage earning is mostly identical across both carriers, so there shouldn't be much change. One difference is that HA now limits 500-mile minimum credit to elites, to the detriment of non-elite interisland fliers. Restoring 500 mile minimums for everyone seems like an easy give for AS.
• HA has only two tiers of elite status, at 20K and 40K, with additional upgrade certificates at 75K but no higher status levels. Integration will presumably track the AS tiers.
• HA has a lot of segment qualifiers (frequent interisland fliers), while AS just eliminated segment qualification. I expect integration on the AS model since they just implemented it, but this is one of the places where AS has the potential to tick off a segment of locals they don't want to tick off, so some kind of transition strategy would be in order.
• HA provides lounge access to all of its elites, but the lounges aren't much. AS needs to get cracking on a proper lounge at HNL and maybe OGG, keep the existing ones going until those are available, and come up with some kind of transition strategy for local fliers who value the HA lounges even if they're crappy.
• The only unsupported complimentary upgrades on HA are for Plats interisland. On transition, we'll presumably get free upgrades on most routes on the AS system. But there are a couple of nuances. First, HA is pretty liberal with mileage upgrades on all fares, while AS mileage upgrades are usually a lousy deal. It would behoove AS to move a bit toward the HA model so as not to disappoint the segment of HA fliers who save up their miles to fly in front. Second, HA's Plat upgrade certificates don't clear until ~ 72 hours out, but they're usable on any ticket (including awards), and two certificates can be used to upgrade long-haul (east coast and international) flights. AS should give some thought to replacing both its GGUs and HA's Plat certificates with something that will make sense in the new network.
• Other than lounges, segment qualifiers, and some use cases for mileage and certificate upgrades, AS is a better program and should be well received by HA fliers.

Other thoughts? I'm sure I'm missing something.