Hawaiian airlines greatly expanding its nonstop routes 2 Kauai, Big Island(new planes
 

ordered portend even greater expansion) How will Alaska react?

Hopefully by resuming daily service to LIH and KOA from SJC and OAK.

Hawaiian will be flying 767s to start except to LIH where the runway is to short it seems. They have ordered Airbus 321neos to solve that problem in the future l, so that, in time, they will be able to fly nonstop from any No. American city within 1000 miles of west coast to LIH, for example, and even land on those shortened strips. Their planes will have greater capacity than AS and a far greater range (AS flights are limited to West Coast cities now because of the range limitations of 737.800s as I understand it)

Would love to see AS begin interisland service to compete with Hawaiian as well. If they don't, looks like SWA will.

Don't really think Allegiant is much competition as they are flying out of smaller and different (LAS) airports.


http://beatofhawaii.com/hawaiian-air...kona-and-more/
"Hawaiian Airlines is expanding its Hawaii flights including for the first time non-stop service from the US mainland to Kauai. This is going to be great news for those of you traveling to or from the San Francisco Bay Area and should be the precursor of future Hawaii deals.

First, starting January 5, 2014 the company will upgrade to daily service between Oakland and Honolulu. It is currently only four days a week. Daily service to Maui will continue as scheduled.

Hawaiian Airlines Nonstop to Kauai and Kona

In addition, Hawaiian Airlines plans for the first time to fly nonstop between the US mainland and Kauai. Service from Oakland to and from Kauai is to commence three times a week. The company will also add service between Oakland and the Big Island four times a week. Service will be onboard Hawaiian’s Boeing 767′s. The new flights are only seasonal at this point, pending analysis of demand and competition. They will operate from June 14 to August 15, 2014. Their Boeing 767′s will fly will fly with somewhat less than full weight from Kauai since a fully loaded 767 is incompatible with the short Lihue runway. In the future, Hawaiian will be able to provide service to smaller airports including Lihue using their new Airbus 321neo planes."


...
"We strongly believe that Southwest Hawaii service will be based out of Oakland. There is no indication of when SWA Hawaii flights will begin flying to Hawaii."



more on Hawaiian airlines' plans for new planes:

http://beatofhawaii.com/what-hawaiia...-means-to-you/ :

"Hawaiian airlines announced its intent to acquire between 16 and 25 new Airbus long range, single-isle A321neo’s for airline flights to Hawaii. Deliveries are still 4 years off at this point, but the company’s intentions are nonetheless clear. And this is definitely good news for Hawaii vacation deals...

Hawaiian airlines intends to compete "with up and coming Hawaii players Alaska Air and Allegiant Air, as well as the potential new kid on the block Southwest Airlines in the all-important west coast markets. And they intend to do so with the industry’s latest planes offering the greatest flexibility."

...
A321neo distinguishing features

3,650 mile range. The new 190 seat 2-cabin Airbus 321neo puts within range cities up to 1,000 miles inland from the west coast. That is distinguishing inasmuch as the Alaska (and Southwest) 737 fleet is not cable of going significantly beyond the west coast...



Short field operations. While no details were available at this time, we believe the new planes are configurable with a short runway performance package, in order to serve airports such as Lihue Kauai with its 6,500 foot field. Hawaiian has been at a disadvantage without aircraft to serve the popular garden island directly. That’s provided the opening for competitor Alaska Air to take up Kauai service from up and down the Pacific Coast..."

AS has no interest in interisland service; it would be counterproductive to their successful strategy of providing new nonstop service to Hawaii from various West Coast points that couldn't have been profitably served by larger equipment.

And if you honestly believe WN is considering interisland service, I've got a lovely 19th century bridge linking Manhattan to Long Island that I'd gladly sell you at a great bargain. Interested?

I doubt AS would bring back flights just to spite HA. They cut routes that didnt perform. They arent going to add them back and lose money just to piss off HA. As it stands Im pretty sure HA is already miffed at the explosion of AS into all 4 of Hawaii's larger islands in a very short amount of time. And sure Allegiant is a competitor even though they are different smaller cities in the area. Thats like saying if WN starts flying from ANC-MKE it wont really hurt the business of AS flying ANC-ORD. Rest assured if that ever happened(and it wont, its just hypothetical) Id be taking WN to MKE instead of AS to ORD and then hopping in a rental car to MKE or other wisconsin business points or taking that dreaded AE to CWA MSN or MKE. In other words Its worth driving a little ways for nonstop service but if you dont have to, why the heck would you? In my book the big 3 to avoid are LGA, ORD, and ATL. The first 2 due to weather. LAX isnt all that bad because its pretty much a fair weather climate

767s can get in an out of LIH ok... just takes a bit of 'hot rodding' :)

It wouldn't surprise me to see WN do a KOA-LIH-Mainland run or something like that. I doubt they'd do true inter island service like HA or others do.

What else are they going to fly to LIH next year?

They "believe" the A321s have a short runway package but have no clue yet....oh and thats 4 years away :confused:

They could always lease some 737 next gens. Theyre sitting around rotting away all over the place

20-something years ago, I was on a DC10 out of LIH (UA) - of course, the flight stopped @ HNL prior to the mainland trip.

yeah isnt it amazing how times have changed. 15 or 20 years ago it wasnt uncommon at all for big jets like DC 10s and 757s to do whats extensively puddle jump flights now done by Embraers and CRJS. I remember flying from MDT to DTW on NW DC 10s. And 747s used to be used on "long hauls" or well transcons

Good for HA

Will be interesting to see if they commence service to ANC again... (That would be great for AS fares ;) )

:(

AS needs a real partner for interisland flights, as many pax like to fly to several islands during a vacation... They tried YV for a while (#fail) and MW went Tango Uniform (and YV bought them :rolleyes:)

I could see AS running some Q400's interisland on a limited frequency... and would like to see this.

I thought when AAG bought "Hawaiian vacations" there was some kind of deal in the contract where HA couldnt have ANC service for X amount of years. Im not sure when that period ends

The 400s seem to maybe be too big. I could see it during peak travel months but I really think their 200s could have suited that niche much better

I am not certain what happened there. It is fun where hawaiianvacations.com redirects to ;)

Agree those aircraft are a bit large- but the economies of scale work (if pax fill the plane- HA does fill its DC 9 717's it seems.

exactly :p