There is a clause in the ALPA transitional agreement that in essence allows one trip to Hawaii to be flown by US (East) pilots, and one trip over the Atlantic to be flown by HP (West) pilots until the workgroups and certificates merge.

I expect they did that with the anticipation of either running a widebody to Hawaii or running a 757 to a "thinner" European destination (GLA in the winter?).

The HP 757 has probably the worst F class cabin I have ever seen. I spoke to a telephone agent who told me that the person in front of her rapidly reclined his seat smashing her beverage and spilling it into her lap. The person infront of me rapidly reclined and crunched my laptop. I am not a huge fan of bulkheads but it is the only way to be safe on these terrible birds.

It had me longing for the oldest, dirtiest F Class cabin on US East which is still far superior to the US West 757. never thought I'd say that :(

That's a great trip report for a clearly awful service. Could we just chalk it up to inexperience (on the part of the check-in process in HNL) and hope that things get better? I would hope so. Of course, this is without saying that HP did service HNL in the good old days.

Not very many airlines have the "remember to check you luggage through ag. screening before getting in line" sign posted at their check-in counters. People always (including myself--I forget once in awhile) to do so.

According to some posts on USAviation, the "weight restrictions" are purely paper... the aircraft wasn't federally certified to its actual max gross weight to save money back in the day, because they never figured on using it. Allegedly they can just pay Boeing and the government a fee to "upgrade" the paperwork - if so, why they haven't done it by now is far beyond me.

Hi,

Given the " weight issues" could things get worse in the summer given the " heat" in PHX causing poorer takeoff performance and less pax/cargo able to be carried? on the 757?

A very poor performance by HP

Regards

TBS

Bring Back the 747 for this route!!!
 

;) :D :) :p

Wow, thanks for the Trip Report AZ. Thank God we still have the *A option to HI. There is no way in H*LL I'm flying US/HP on this route unless they move some of the worn POS 767 to this route which would seem to be better than HP's worn POS 757s!

just wondering then how the ata flights have been working this route for so long, and they operate an all coach 197pax seating, meaning, more seats = more pax = more baggage = more weight. i know that the ata a/c dont have the added weight in the galleys with the ovens, but still, they have been flying phx-hnl for how long. somebody help

Thanks, AZ... I almost booked three first class tickets to HNL for April. Mom's coming over from Europe and wanted to spend a few days in the sun. Change of plans.... :eek:
I can not believe how far the Tempe desk jockeys have their heads up their butts!!! You merge with a company twice your size with international and long distance travel experience and then this. Why not allocate a 767 or two to get this service off the ground? The seasonal routes like Dublin, Shannon, Glasgow, Barcelona and Venice are not flown until May. These 767's are flying to SJU, Nassau and back and forth between PHL and CLT. Between the devaluation of the DM program and the current decisions of the "New US Airways" management, I will seriously have to consider staying with US Airways.
I just hope the Tempe team starts to listen to their premium customers before BK3 strikes. BTW, Mom is flying US Airways from Europe into PHL.... :rolleyes:

Oh boy, that does not sound good. I wonder if they realized this before they started the service.

I wonder if the wind conditions and routing that day made a difference (although it is strange that it happened every day).

Also, are there different levels of ETOPS for the 752? It seems strange that tons other 757 flights are over the Atlantic now (LIS-EWR, for example, is 3384 while PHX-HNL is 2917) - although there are probably more in-between landing places over the Atlantic.

UA flies DEN-KOA 3329 mi. on a 757-200 and gets by fine. PHX-HNL is only about 2900 miles - so there's no real reason why a 757 can't do the run with a full load.

In theory, the planes can fly with full pax+bags+cargo the entire way, but if the aircraft itself isn't officially certified to carry the extra weight, the flight becomes weight restricted, as we've all seen from Day 1. FCYTravis touched up a little on it above. If HP wanted to, they could pay extra to get the paperwork updated and the aircraft recertified towards a higher max weight. We see UA with nonstop DEN-KOA and CO's 752 Transatlantic services because those aircraft are most likely certified to the max gross weight as designed by Boeing (~255K). HP's 752s, IIRC, are certified up to 210K.

Wow, what an awful experience you had AZ. :eek:

I am uncomfortable enough flying those awful 752 F seats over to Houston I could only imagine how it must have been for 6.5 hours! You would think HP would kick it up a notch with service offerings on this route, especially since they don't offer comp elite upgrades. Why shouldn't they if the service is the same crap they offer when I fly to ORD for that matter? :rolleyes:

The bad news is that this trip report (from a respected flyertalker) totally exemplifies the amateurish quality of this airline.

The good news is that AZ just saved me major $$$ as I was planning on taking HP to OGG this year. :(

I can not believe how far the Tempe desk jockeys have their heads up their butts!!! You merge with a company twice your size with international and long distance travel experience and then this. Why not allocate a 767 or two to get this service off the ground? The seasonal routes like Dublin, Shannon, Glasgow, Barcelona and Venice are not flown until May. These 767's are flying to SJU, Nassau and back and forth between PHL and CLT. Between the devaluation of the DM program and the current decisions of the "New US Airways" management, I will seriously have to consider staying with US Airways.


They cannot do this becuase while they may be one company they are far from being one airline. All kind of reasons why US cannot fly on an AWA route. You will not see that operational logic until the certificates are merged spring 2007.

A few comments ...
 

Put yourself in the shoes of those who've saved their $$$ and found a week of vaca to get away from the stress of everydaylife and they get to the HP gate and told that 40 folks need to come off the plane. Not just today, but yesterday, the day before, and the 11 days before that. Chances are it'll also be tomorrow, the day after that, etc, etc.

I, for one, would be royally miffed. Even the best of rescheduling will likely add HOURS to my flight times and increase the chances of missed bags exponentially.

I will only say that I am truly disappointed to learn that the launching of this planned service is off to such an unacceptable start. The responsibility for logistical and operating issues lies squarely with PHX. On top of that, to learn that the on board services appear to, in no way, reflect the special destination that Hawaii is is additionally disappointing. UA manages to keep these routes special with Mai Tais, special Hawaiiana meals in F and some in Y and the famous guess the mid-point game. AA (at least until a few years ago) had special in flight outfits for the f/a's to wear for HI service that made things feel festive when the pax walked through the door of the a/c. None of these things adds significant cost to the flights and increases the pax's experience tenfold.

What a shame. What a shame.