rettacarl

I heard about this promo on my last flight home form the islands in the middle of December. I have not gotten an invitation though. Not sure this would really benefit me.

1KHI

This promo is now open for everyone:

http://www.hawaiianair.com/neighbor-island-travel-plan/

iahphx

I see they're pitching it pretty actively on the website:

http://www.hawaiianairlines.com/neig...-pos5_20121115

Does anyone buy these passes? They don't seem to be very good deals. For the leisure passes you need to book 2 weeks in advance, commit to 4 roundtrips, and then pay $150 roundtrip. That's about what you could pay anyway on many routes. The one that seems the best deal is "Noa," but you've got to be constantly hopping between islands to make it work. The fare's not better than leisure fares, but it allows you to waive all advance-purchase rules, so I would think it would be very handy for the ultra-frequent interisland traveler.

I find it odd that all passes (except the Noa) blackout travel between 11 am and 2 pm. Is that a big time for mainland connections? I wouldn't think it would otherwise be peak time for interisland flying or, for that matter, flying pretty much anywhere else in the world.

azj

11a-2p is the absolute peak for the entire airline and you'll see the frequency increase to meet the demand. Some hours will see 3-4 flights to one destination, usually Maui. Most mainland flights are arriving in HNL as well as a few of the later international flights. It's also peak time for other airlines arriving from various destinations who have passengers connecting to HAL neighbor island flights. So yes, that's exactly whey there's a blackout.

iahphx

Ah, the vagaries of the Hawaiian market. In contrast, I spent some time at the HNL airport at 5 pm on a Friday -- normally a busy airport travel time -- and the airport looked almost deserted!

azj

Yup, 5pm is pretty dead, until late evening when the red-eyes all start departing. It's mostly based on the timezone. Flights that leave for the coast about 4 will arrive by midnight, this time of year. Anything later than that gets you there at an odd hour. The red eyes start around 9pm, getting you there first thing in the morning. Hence, the downtime at the airport. Morning is absolutely buzzing with foreign arrivals from about 6am to mid day. The first arrivals from the west coast start around 11am and continue to late afternoon but are concentrated between about 11-2pm. Gates 24-34 are generally a solid line up of Hawaiian during the mid day rush, plus T2's gates 49-61 of which there are typically 3 767s at the end during the peak as well. A few other tails are generally sprinkled in here and there, but when its 100% Hawaiian, it's an impressive lineup.