Troopers

And it happened yesterday, actually two flights. WN 5700 cancelled and rescheduled for next day (today). WN 6569 departed 2 hours late; connecting flights to LAS, LAX and SLC were held in OAK. Other connecting paxs received hotel vouchers and spent the night in OAK.

WrightHI

With Southwest's announcement of Hilo service, this is starting to look like a serious effort to own the interisland market a few years out. Four flights a day aren't enough to compete for hardcore interisland business travelers, but it will work for a lot of purposes. I haven't done a lot of looking, but a quick scan shows some very cheap HA fares in response. That will cause HA some real pain over the kind of time horizon Southwest is presumably working on, and so far I haven't seen any competitive response from HA other than cheap fares. They may end up wishing they'd put a little more effort into earning local travelers' loyalty before this is done.

Alex909

iahphx

Hilo surprises me because it's not really a tourist town. Heck, I've flown into Hilo several times because I was fond of Kapoho, but that area (which was the biggest tourist draw on the east side) is now under lava. So no one is going to stay in business flying tourists to Hilo. I guess the locals will be happy with cheaper flight to HNL, but something tells me that these folks aren't typical WN customers. I guess we'll see what happens.

LIH Prem

I recently compared prices on SWA and Hawaiian between OGG and HNL (there's a ton of flights every day on HA between OGG/HNL) using two browser windows side-by-side. The flights in direct competition time-wise with SWAs 4 daily flights showed the same exact fares overall, though the presentation is quite different .. final prices were identical when picking the cheapest fares but it's hard to see that on the initial flight selection screens. And of course, it doesn't factor in SWAs free bags. Other flights were normal HA pricing.

But now looking at Friday June 28, not seeing direct price competition on every flight. SWA has $39 fares on 3 of its 4 flights, HA only showing one flight 6:30pm with a $39 fare. HA has 27 flights that day from OGG to HNL. SWA has 4 flights, 3 with $39 fares, one with $59 fare. I guess YMMV.

Another data point, on July 9, SWA has $29 fares on all 4 flights. HA has only one flight with $29 fares (7:10pm departure).

I guess what I saw before is not true anymore .. only select flights, and not all, maybe one or two per day will match SWA's cheapest fares. overall, this needs more analysis as I only compared a few random dates today.

-David

kimChee

Actually, Southwest isn't flying from mainland to Hawaii, and then continuing on an inter-island segment.
While they are using "the same planes" they fly to/from the mainland, it's not like the old days where, for example, a DL jumbo jet arrives in HNL, and continues on to OGG, and if you bought just the interisland, your flight would be at the mercy of the flight arriving from mainland.
Simply use Flightradar24.com and can get an idea of what WN is doing - which can be - arrive from mainland and overnight, then go into inter-island service for a few days doing nothing but inter-island flights, until flying a return leg to mainland.

(Flightradar24 allows you to pull up the flight history for an aircraft by registration number. It also displays the registration number as part of individual flight info. So, once you find any WN flight from mainland to Hawaii, you can just click the airframe registration number hyperlink and see all the flight history for that airframe (how far back you can go depends on whether you are free or have a subscription).

(I'd also comment that comparing mainland short haul flights to Hawaii interisland from a cost/price or almost any other metric is fallacious: for example, Baltimore, MD to JFK (BWI-JFK) is 184 miles - almost the exact distance HNL-KOA.
For BWI-JFK, I can take Amtrak, a bus, a car, a limo, etc. For HNL-KOA, I have no choice. Using a car, I can drive in about 3.5 hrs. If I fly, the flight will be blocked for 1.5 hours. Because of the alternative transportation options, the demand for flights BWI-JFK is very low compared to HNL-KOA. HA is making oodles of cash on interisland and I am thankful there's now some competition.)

Tanic

I would think at some point that WN could use 700s for interisland service. Their ETOPS B738 inventory is stretched very tight which is restricting expansion.

azj

You sort of disprove your point though. Despite the lack of ability to drive, with flying being the only option and the demand it fuels, fares are well within the realm of comparison for similar stage lengths on the mainland. If HAL was "gouging", "raping", "taking advantage" or "dishonest" as some assert, wouldn't fares be exorbitant, compared to similar stage lengths on the mainland? The fact is, they're not. HAL could charge way more purely based on simple economics, but they don't.

Taipei

Hilo service is interesting, all flights to HNL, none to the mainland (see if this happens as there is only one now on UA). I wonder 4 flights a day (short flights at that) make sense for WN as they normally have many more flights.

WrightHI