Just look at an F fare from the east coast to Hawaii. Then look at a J fare from there to Europe. As for the LAX vs PHX thing. Unless there are a lot of open seats on AA's flights to Hawaii from LAX and US's from PHX, each station should retain its respective routes. With the limited gate use at LAX, I don't see how LAX could easily absorb the additional flights. Moreover, it's cheaper to connect people via PHX than LAX.

On the AA 767-300, they are angled lie flat and will likely continue to be through the refurb project of that aircraft (not all are being converted). Once those remaining (unconverted) 767-300's are retired in the coming years, it remains to be seen which aircraft AA will put on DFW-HNL. The US 767-200's will be gone by then too, leaving the combined US-AA with a wide body fleet that is all lie flat seating in the premium cabins.

If you want to stick with OneWorld, then yes - this is the best option for premium seating to Hawaii from the US. But UA flies from EWR and IAH with a 767-400 that has the true lie flat seating up front for those who are particular about how their premium fare is spent.

So if we ignore AA and UA (or put an asterisk on it) then there isn't demand for premium aircraft to Hawaii? Got it. ^

Basically, that's correct.

UA chose not to create a subfleet of long haul aircraft other than leaving some of the 777 fleet with the watered down first class. pmCO has always flown the routes to HNL with DC10's and 767-400's with the BusinessFirst seating (which has evolved to lie flat seats). That way they can use those same 767-400's on Europe routes without having to worry about shifting aircraft around.

The incremental cost or..loss in revenue..by not dealing with the logistics of a subfleet and/or the costs of refurbishing the cabins accordingly, must not be of any significant value.

AA did, at one point, have a subfleet of Hawaiian 767-300's in the early 2000's. They had 30 seats with the domestic type of first class seating and the added benefit of leg rests. At some point they, too, decided it didn't make sense to have a small sub-fleet.

US was never going to refurbish their 757's with any kind of decent premium seating when they began their PHX flights to Hawaii. They did, briefly, run some 757's with Envoy seating not too long ago, but those didn't last very long since those aircraft are typically based in PHL.

Discount one DL A333 ATL-HNL daily. The DL network sees sporadic use of (lie-flat) international aircraft from other hubs but it's more utilization than attempts to meet premium cabin demand.

I've always wondered about the economics of AA's F pricing to Hawaii (rarely below $2500 roundtrip), given how relatively little business travel there is. Are they just banking on rich vacationers?

No idea, but I've routinely seen PHX-HNL in F on US for $800-ish each way, and sometimes lower, so I wonder which direction the fare rationalization will go. Never really thought of Hawaii as a destination that can command high premium traffic, which is why (I'd assumed) all the legacies tend to put their most tired old beat-up birds on the routes.

How do you propose that UA or AA fly a standard domestic config 757 or 737 from ORD, IAH or IAD to HNL? Inflight refueling?

The fact is that UA, DL and AA all fly plain-vanilla, domestic config planes from West Coast-Hawaii routes. It doesn't prove anything that UA, AA or DL has to use a plane that can actually REACH Hawaii from a midcon location to actually, you know, fly to Hawaii. And as it is, when an airline like DL has a choice (they could totally fly a 763 with lie-flats from SEA, for instance, it's a 763 base), they mostly fly one of their beater narrowbodies and stuff them full of Y pax.

That's not a definition of a premium market. Let me know when AA puts a 77W on the LAX-OGG route, OK?

Bingo. UA's 777 Hawaii config is using recliners salvaged from p.s./their old, pre-lie flat international C in F. Some "premium" market, huh?

$2,500 round trip is only about $0.25/per mile from NYC, which isn't all that expensive these days. :)

From LAX, there are first class fares available right now for mid-January for $1,262 round trip, not a princely sum around here.

Median household income in my zip code is about $100k, and I live in a dumpy part of the Valley.

Except when AA does fly the 763 from LAX. For some reason AA up-gauges to a 763 during the holidays and fares also rise. Hmmmm....

There is a more business traffic to HNL than you might otherwise assume. Usually about half of us in the front are on business.

Right, they want to put more capacity on the route at a time of the year when they can use it, and AA doesn't have 753s like UA and DL do, it's 752->763.

Again, let me know when AA actually dedicates real premium equipment all the time, as opposed to opportunistic, occasional stuff, or "well, we have no choice but to fly a 763 from DFW since a 752 would ditch in the ocean".

Sure, which is why AA flies 321Ts and 772s to HNL all the time, right?

This isn't very hard to figure out. If LAX-HNL was a premium market like JFK/TATL/TPAC, they wouldn't be flying "Eisenhower"-config 752s all the time. Sure, it has business passengers. So does LAX-BOS.

So there's really no pressing need to upgauge LAX or PHX from 752s. They're competitive with UA/DL equipment (lots of beater 757s).

So we'll put an asterisk on your statement to ignore AA and UA and DL which run them year around from select markets and seasonally from others. Can you get flights to HNL for $300? Yes. Can you pay the same price to fly in F to HNL as J to LHR? Yes.

The point is there will be no such airplane per se. The 757 was a bit of a hybrid for Boeing and a real dead ender considering where it has not gone and the 737 series has. Most airlines see the 789 as a 757 replacement, as well as the A321. Boeing is rather over-extended at the moment and it makes little sense investing heavily in a new aircraft type considering the limited (compared to the 737, 767 and 777) fleeting the 757 had...many of which are now being sent off to the desert. By extending the 737, and its upcoming variants, plus the 787 and 777 current and X series, there's little need for a completely new variant to meet airline fleets of the next decade and a half.