HA's interisland service is extremely efficient, excellent on-time performance. As I typically travel interisland for business, with a tightly scheduled itinerary, I am happy to pay the modest difference in price for the piece of mind. I have heard horror stories from locals booking WN interisland, having to wait hours for a 20 minute flight when an inbound aircraft from the mainland is delayed.
As others have indicated, WN's gates tend to be less convenient, accessible, adding more time and hassle.

I just flew PHX-OAK-HNL and back on WN.

The PHX-OAK-PHX and OAK-HNL-OAK were separate reservations with separate PNRs.

The good.

The flights were on time and the extra legroom on the 737-800s (compared to other carriers) was noticeable. The flights didn't feel long and the wifi seemed to work throughout the flights (for the free options like streaming and texting). The snack packets were also decent (as were the Milano cookies) plus there were multiple drink / water services.

On the way to Hawaii I spent the night in OAK but on the way back I had booked the last OAK - PHX flight of the night (so I arrived in OAK at 5:50 p.m. and my departing flight to PHX was at 9:25 pm). The counter agent at HNL was able to combine my separate reservations to check my bags from HNL-PHX (without having to reclaim and recheck in Oakland). Incidentally one bag arrived on a different flight (earlier) than the other.

The bad.

WN's entire operation at HNL leaves much to be desired. The ticket counters and bag claims are towards the West side of Terminal 2 yet the gates are at the FAR end of the east side of Terminal 2. I had flashbacks to flying NW out of the old DTW terminal and ending up with a C gate at the far end of the airport. It's easily a 15-20 minute walk from the gates to either the ticket counters or the bags. Not to mention that there are virtually no concessions near the WN gate area and WN's gate area looks like it was slapped together in the basement of the concourse (the only carrier in that terminal with ground level boarding). The HNL experience appears it was designed for flyers to burn their FF miles and isn't catering to really anyone else as it's far and away the least attractive airport experience of any carrier at that airport.

WN is the latest comer to HNL. Are you really expecting HNL can offer a decent space for WN?

Also, in term of concessions, it has been like this even before WN's invasion to HNL.

There is no doubt about HNL's poor design. But it is not a heavy traffic airport. Seriously, no one will open its checkbook and pay for more than needed.

No need to walk to/from the gates. There is a Wiki Wiki Bus stop above the TSA/USDA checkpoint which is a five minute ride to the UA gate area adjacent to the WN escalators.

Should have flown WN out of DET, the airplanes practically parked at the front door. :D

oak>ogg was great, 50 open seats
ogg>hnl was full
hnl>oak was also full

yes hnl gates are far as heck from anything. take the wiki wiki

wifi over the ocean was slow and spotty but it always seems like that for me on WN flights

For those of you who enjoy a bit of intra-island hopping, fares are down to $29 / 1,379 points now. Most days in Feb-Mar-Apr-May 2020.

Get them while they last!

Live TV is absolutely flawless over the pond now. A major improvement over the past year.

too bad my route from cmh now requires an overnight in Oakland on the way there and back. Atleast the inter island flights seem to be a solid option.

Stellar experience flying round trip from Florida to Hawaii, with a couple of inter island flights - eight legs total. Paid for upgraded boarding for one passenger on three legs, other passenger had promotional A-List. Got poor man's first class - an empty middle - on every single leg. Once (SJC-BNA) was pure luck / strategy, but the others were open enough (25-100 seats open!) that our chances were somewhere between pretty good and almost guaranteed. Zero delays, perfect wifi over water, and amazing crew.

Only downside as far as I can see is that I can't understand how this could possibly be sustainable for WN. I hope they are able to do a better job filling these flights in the future.

Oh, one additional, hopefully rare downside: wide open flights meant I ran into an incredibly rude nonrev. On the afternoon OGG-SJC flight on 31 Jan, the holder of A41 boarded after A-30. It being wide open, I probably didn't need to say anything snarky about her ability to count, but I did. She then informed me that she and her family were nonreving, so it didn't count as cutting in line. Mind blown, I responded pretty rudely myself, letting her know that apparently I understood better than her how the whole nonrev process is supposed to work. I honestly hope it happens again, to someone willing to report it directly to WN. The employee sponsor of that group should be made aware of how their passriders behave.

Both of my flights last week OAK-OGG and KOA-SJC had about a 50% load factor. Some rows were completely empty. You could buy same day WGA tix for under $200.

I chatted with a flight attendant about this, and she said she believes that it's because people can't see Southwest on the aggregator sites, and don't think to plug it in on the WN site. I mentioned to her that many routes to Hawaii can't be priced out on their website either. She was surprised and I showed her - she said she was sure they were working on both 'issues.' I smiled and nodded.

I've found that FAs don't really keep up with anything but their own schedule. I have a neighbor who was and Airtran FA and became a Southwest FA she never kept up with announcements or news and generally waited for the Company or the Union to tell he what she needed to do.

Southwest announced long ago that their connections would be limited and they would add more over time. I don't know if the MAX thing has slowed that down but it seems likely.

They can't, at least not based on the current WN business model.

Take UA as an example - UA's profit comes from the cargo below. The cargo are destined from the CONUS to Hawaii, Guam, CNMI, as well as any Pacific island countries served by the famous Island Hopper. There is a reason why UA uses widebodies, mostly B772, to serve Hawaii. Others are similar.

Also - if you look at the Hawaiian market as a whole, most of the airlines try not to compete with each others except for certain markets to ensure profitability. Yet, WN chose to step into those certain markets. Seriously, WN's introduction to Hawaii harms WN more than others.

There's little evidence load factors are as bad as this pair of anecdotes suggest. WN boasted last fall that "load factors for Hawaii flights are exceeding network averages, and the airline is seeing historic load factors across the network."

But the more Hawaii airspace becomes overcrowded, the more fare wars will leave casualties. Hawaiian and Southwest potentially have lowest costs per unit.

Hi,
I'm traveling SJC to KOA in April.
1. What time does the plane start boarding in SJC? Curious if they allow more time for boarding due to the larger plane. I'm traveling with kids and expect a large spring break crowd in April.
2. Just to confirm, a previous poster mentioned that people are held 50 minutes before departure time for the USDA inspection? For the return flight, I don't want to go too early and end up waiting.


thanks!