Thanks for this nice report and your honest and unvarnished appraisal of Hawaiian's soft product / meal service on this important route. It's refreshing to read the perspective of a seasoned pro such as yourself as opposed to some wide-eyed newbie reporting on how "awesome" their flight in American or United's Business Class was.

A quality meal in both quantity and quality - as well as proper presentation - is an important benefit of the extra money spent to travel in International Business Class.

I've yet to see a U.S. airline fully understand and embrace this concept. Instead, they offer an okay - but not superior - meal and service that's impressive to the wide eyed leisure traveler sitting up front for the very first time, but otherwise a letdown to the more seasoned business traveler.

It's amazing that over the years, AA, UA, CO, DL and now AS appear not to have taken note of the competition's (AN, JL, KE, CX, SQ) inflight service standards, if only just to see how they do it, and in the process learn how to offer a similarly good product.

Alas, that's not how they do it over here in the U.S., and as a result - being the seasoned 6 million mile flier that I am - I won't waste my money or miles on a U.S. airline for international travel.

But they're great for those $123.00 flights from Omaha to Chicago!