Southwest Airlines has started flights to Hawaii, initially offering limited availability as cheap as $99 round-trip. But even with the Companion Pass, I won’t take Southwest to the islands.
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The Part That Southwest Got Right: Flight Times… Kind Of
Southwest’s flight times are daytime routes which can be helpful for a few reasons, but it’s not really on purpose. Southwest’s prior IT system didn’t allow the scheduling of red-eye flights. It seems that while they have pushed the boundaries on red-eye flights elsewhere, on the Hawaii flights they have chosen not to. They kind of backed into daytime flights which is in some ways better, in other ways, not so much.
Most of the competition flies in the evenings and lands early in the morning, much like trans-Atlantic flights. This is because there is a three-hour time change from Hawaii to the west coast on top of a four and a half hour flight (add some taxi time) makes for about an eight-hour departure to landing differential. Flights from other carriers often take off in the late evening (making checkouts tough) and land very early in the morning following a very short flight.
I dislike those red-eyes because the flight is so short but the changes are so dramatic that there is no way to properly adjust to the time difference without a rough first day back on the mainland (unless you fly further east in a premium cabin.)
The benefit of overnight flights, however, is that connections are widely available due to the early arrivals. With Southwest, limited options exist if flyers are not originating from the west coast. For example, two daily flights from Honolulu to Oakland offer arrival times of 5:45 pm or 11:50 pm. It’s possible to grab some connections from 6:45 pm in Oakland but most options have flown for the day, and of course, the near midnight arrival leaves no options whatsoever.
The other drawback is that Southwest flyers essentially “burn” a day. Passengers that fly at 9:30 am landing at 5:45 pm, don’t get their last day in Hawaii on vacation. Alternatively, passengers can enjoy the late flight (departing at 3:30 pm) but can’t make a connection flight in the evening if they are going anywhere but Oakland.
Separate Tickets for Most Cities
Live in the Bay Area? Great, you shouldn’t have much trouble ticketing. Denver and Phoenix also have easy through-ticketing options, but for the 96 other Southwest airports, some of them as important to the network as Chicago Midway, Houston Hobby, and Baltimore – customers will have to buy separate tickets.
Some of this comes down to flight times I believe, but it also reminds me of odd ticketing decisions Southwest management has made, either due to IT challenges, or other oddities. For example, Southwest struggled to make their Houston Hobby-Mexico City flights work but also didn’t allow through-ticketing from many other cities.
How do you show your customers that you offer flights to Hawaii, yet make it difficult for them to ticket form any place besides the west coast? For customers, how problematic is that?
Southwest’s Seats are Not the Problem
It should be noted that for most passengers, Southwest’s seats are not the problem. If you hold status on United, Delta, or American Airlines you will likely secure a free seat assignment in some version of “economy plus” with 36-38” of seat pitch. But if you are a commoner on those carriers, Southwest is dramatically better for passengers offering 34” of seat pitch (that’s more legroom) in every row of every plane, more in the exits and bulkhead.
The real problem in flying Southwest to and from Hawaii is that their planes are not outfitted for such flights (despite flying even longer routes across the mainland.) They don’t offer power outlets at any seat, that makes a long flight with awkward time changes challenging, especially when you don’t start on the west coast. Imagine a loyal Chicago Midway flyer spending the first three and a half hours of the day getting out to Oakland, spend an hour on the ground changing flights, then jump on another five and a half hour flight to Honolulu.
Everything you own is devoid of power (unless you have my favorite portable power pack), there is no inflight entertainment (Hawaiian, Delta, and some American flights will still offer it), and not even a meal or the ability to purchase one to occupy your time. Yes, upgraded snacks will be on offer but for traveling families it’s a very long day without substantive food, power, and thus, entertainment options.
I don’t fly with pets and have been clear that unless you are a veteran or have a genuine prescribed need for a true service dog- the dog should stay at home or should be paid for in compliance with pet policies. Unfortunately for those who would like to fly with their pets in the cabin for a fee – Southwest doesn’t offer it on their Hawaiian network (maybe this should be a bonus for me.)
Southwest’s Prices Will Be Higher Than People Think
Capacity to the islands was already at fever pitch before Southwest started nosing around flying west of California. Prior to Southwest’s Hawaii announcement, $300-400 roundtrips from the west coast were available on sales or during shoulder seasons. It is absolutely true that expansion by traditional Hawaii stakeholders was amplified once Southwest indicated their intention to fly there. United, in particular, added a significant amount of capacity.
Other carriers have had to fill seats on all of these new flights. Alaska Air is (perhaps counterintuitively) the largest carrier to the Hawaiian islands added even more seats as a result of their acquisition of Virgin America. Prices have dropped to fill seats and I, personally, wouldn’t pay a dime over $350 roundtrip from the west coast to Hawaii right now.
Despite offering attention-grabbing headline fares of as low as $49 each way, those flights didn’t last long. In the next few months, roundtrip fares are offered between LAX and Honolulu at $600-1300(!) routinely or non-stops from the Bay Area as cheap as $164 in one direction, unfortunately, the other way will run you $599.
Looking out further in advance, these Southwest prices look better in September once the kids are back in school, dropping to as low as $224. However, these are one-way prices. The competition offers one-stop roundtrips from $287 or nonstops from $358, at the very minimum 10% cheaper than Southwest, but most days in the fall, everyone else is less than half Southwest’s price.
Southwest is generally more expensive than other carriers. I outlined this previously to the shock, horror and utter contempt of some commenters in a post about the Companion Pass losing some of its luster due to the airline’s lack of competitiveness on some routes. Statistically, Southwest is more expensive 60% of the time and within $5 (higher or lower) than the competition 5% of the time. Nearly 2/3rds of the time, travelers could get a cheaper flight on another carrier, usually substantially so.
Southwest just invested a ton of money into the new aircraft that will fly the routes, ETOPs Certification, training for staff and crew and the investment in opening new destinations across the islands. They will want to recuperate that investment and they already have pent-up demand from customers who have wanted to be able to use some of their Rapid Rewards points to visit Hawaii but haven’t been able to this point.
While the “Southwest Effect” appears to be helping travelers get to the island for less, it’s only valid when they fly other carriers. In this instance, carriers that fly to Hawaii have strengthened their market position and are holding their ground with their customers rather than a low fare competitor coming to steal market share from inflated, stagnant prices (as the term used to mean.)
Yes, you get two bags checked for free with Southwest. Except that they aren’t really free (you pay for them in higher fares) and that only matters if every passenger on your itinerary needs two bags checked (my family wouldn’t need six checked bags and six carry-ons for even a month-long trip.)
Flights Are Going to be Jam Packed
There are lots of families that now hold the companion pass, especially in California, and others that have made Southwest their carrier. Many loyalists have amassed hundreds of thousands of Rapid Rewards points just waiting to be spent. The anticipation is so palpable that there have been announcements about the announcements of partial information about Southwest’s Hawaiian expansion.
Flights will be full, and that’s not fun for me or anyone else.
Conclusion
While some passengers will no doubt take advantage of Southwest’s new flights to the islands, I won’t be one of them despite holding a buy-one, get-one-free Companion Pass. Flights will be very, very full. Flights depart and arrive from the west coast with very little transit time making for very hard flights. Even with the companion pass, most days I found are more than 2:1 the cost of other carriers who already offer power, catering, and entertainment options that Southwest does not.
What do you think? Will you be flying Southwest to the Hawaiian islands? Does their model work outside of the west coast?
For people who don’t travel often, the free checked bags is the biggest marketing technique roping them in. Thinking they “save $100” round trip for two bags makes them not even check fare differentials. It’s genius really, but I think like yourself most frequent travelers have figured out the game.
I’m a United fanboy (hi Matthew!) so no Southwest for me unless they have an exclusive route somewhere, which isn’t often out of Denver.
Everything would be devoid of power? Hahaha. What kind of serious traveler doesn’t pack a power bank to charge their phone and/or tablet so they can have their own IFE. I mean, cmon man, you can get a nice 10-20000 mah version for like $30 on Amazon.
Too true, and I added a power pack I use that would get someone through the trip. However, when traveling with small children, you’d need a couple for flights with connections.
I’ve had this argument with someone before, and the piece I think you’re missing is that Southwest’s target customer for Hawai’i flights isn’t a serious traveler who would even know what a “nice 10-20000 mah version” power pack is, or for that matter, might think that they need one. I see this becoming an issue – a family connecting from MDW in Kyle’s example doesn’t realize until an hour into the OAK-HNL leg that their electronics aren’t going to survive the entire flight.
I was fortunate to get some flights on their early prices, including a reasonable fare on the inaugural to OGG. One thing you have to remember with the Southwest flights is that there is a lot of pent up demand from Southwest customers, so this first schedule is going to have the lower fares sold quickly. And given the nature of Southwest’s schedule releases, you are generally going to have the really cheap seats being sold out quickly after the schedule releases.
For the fare calendar in May, the fares that remain (where they remain) are obviously Anytime and Business Select fares. To be a true comparison to the product that’s being offered, you should be showing that an equivalent carrier is charging for a fully refundable and flexible ticket, since both Anytime and Business Select come with that level of flexibility. Obviously, once the Wanna Get Away fares in a particular flight are gone, those that remain are Southwests version of full-fare economy. Also, when you go to Google Flights to comparison shop for the month of September, for example, the options at the price point you have pointed out are (for the dates I picked out of a hat) AA basic economy fares with 16 hour layovers in Phoenix rather than nonstop. Hawaiian’s direct service is more in line with the SW price at $478 round trip. YMMV.
So yeah, Southwest’s introductory fares on the route are gone, but I don’t think you’ve presented compelling evidence to show that they are appreciably higher on the route as a whole. The inventory is lower due to the flight’s popularity and what is left is the higher price. I am curious about how you conclude that “statistically” Southwest is higher 60% of the time, etc. – I followed your link trail to the Time article from 2013, but that figure comes with the enormous caveat that it applies to airfare only and the methodology by which the WSJ columnist came up with that figure is not given. With even more ULCCs these days, it’s difficult to compare because an “all-in” price on one of those carriers is different for everyone with a very low price for the airfare only. I don’t think we’ll be able to draw any conclusions about how the pricing will compare until Southwest is a more regular player in the market and we can more easily compare their standard pricing to their competition.
As to the routing options – as an East Coast based traveler, I always take an overnight layover on the West Coast on the return from Hawaii anyway (on Alaska using the companion cert through the CC, though now I would consider SW as well since I am also a companion pass holder). I cannot sleep on planes, so redeyes really reduce the value proposition of going to Hawaii for me, and a hotel night on points or at low cost is just part of the cost of that vacation for me. So I personally do not mind SW’s schedule – it is comparable to Alaska’s and Hawaiian’s on the route – but can certainly understand why someone else would prefer a red eye to get back to this side of the country. I would love to fly on Hawaiian’s HNL-BOS service just to get on this country’s longest domestic flight.
I don’t have kids, but I am perfectly happy to read a magazine or book and have multiple power banks, as mentioned by a previous commenter. I would happily cede my tablet and have the means to power it for the entire journey such that the lack of seatback entertainment or power is not a bother for me. And I’d sooner buy food in the airport terminal than buy on board, so that issue is a push at best.
Rob, I appreciate your comment and you’ve said a lot (I did too in my post), but I want to come back to you on a couple of points.
Regarding May fares where Southwest shows business flexible fares and I compare to economy on other carriers, I take issue with having to match the fare to the flexible nature for a couple of reasons. Southwest has sold out or chosen not to offer cheaper fares for the period but still delivers an economy product which is apples-to-apples with the competition. It is possible that other competitors are also sold out on direct flights on the route and didn’t make the lowest available list and thus weren’t part of the comparison. As a consumer looking for economy flights, tangible differences matter, refundability (especially with Southwest’s generous flight change policy) is not something consumers typically shop – they are looking for comparable seats on the route with comparable benefits. Southwest also has a habit of pricing flights this way close-in to booking regardless of how full the flights are, in my experience.
In regards to your questions about Southwest being more expensive 2/3rds of the time, I also outlined some examples here: http://bit.ly/2yD8sMR – though I quickly learned that Southwest loyalists will always find a reason to toss an empirical argument. For example, comments on that post were that Pittsburgh wasn’t a fair market to compare because other markets were still competitive. Still others mentioned that because they always check a bag and that represents $50-70 roundtrip in savings to them, then despite my inclusion of checked bag fees in my analysis it was not valid either. There’s nothing wrong with being loyal and loving a carrier. However, that doesn’t mean that Southwest is cheaper just because they include bags and sometimes offer $49 fares – tell JetBlue fans who book $20 deal fares from Boston and Fort Lauderdale.
We agree on the routing you describe with an overnight, the use of Alaska’s companion fare, and I too would love to try Hawaiian’s BOS service.
My point is not that you shouldn’t buy food in the airport for a better experience, travel with a power bank or (heaven forbid) read a book – I do the same. It’s that you have none of those even as options and whether I am traveling with a child or not, it’s a long day if you fly through and do not take a stop overnight as your particular example suggests.
I certainly did not mean to imply that you were obligated to show the most flexible fare on other carriers. To most consumers, the get-in price is what matters. But what I did take issue with is that you presented those fares – which are those that remain available since Wanna Get Away is sold out – as Southwest’s standard offering on the route. In my mind, doing so would be just as misleading as presenting Southwest’s introductory $49 one-way fares as the standard price that Southwest will be offering. But, since those fares are their equivalent of full-fare economy, it really fails to give a complete picture when you don’t at least mention that that is the case, at the very least in a parenthetical. And I do not believe that having only Business Select/Anytime fares remaining supports the conclusion that SW is not price-competitive on the route, especially since we won’t know what those folks who bought the Wanna Get Away fares paid for those flights.
As for my the routing options and amenities on board – not meant as a criticism of your personal preferences, just responding to your open question at the end of the article about why SW works for me (even as someone who regularly flew Alaska when I lived on the West Coast and got used to that in-seat power at every seat). Now, if only the SW booking engine can catch up to Alaska and allow overnight layovers on one reservation!
The cheap inter-island flights is the only reason I’m excited about southwest coming to Hawaii …. 60 dollars round trip island to island to almost 50% cheaper than what Hawaiian Airlines is charging…. I frequently travel from HNL to the big island so I welcome the savings
That’s fair enough, I am excited to achieve similar savings when I next visit the islands… on another long haul carrier.
Stron disagreement from the west coast! I’m not what you would call a frequent flyer but I do travel at least once a month domestically in economy for both business and leisure. In addition, I also play the CC and points game at fairly modest level. On the spending side I tend to focus more on Chase Ultimate Rewards and SWA miles with a companion pass but I am a very analytical shopper and try to get good value on the spending side. Over the last 5 years I have probably saved 100s of thousands of points and a big chunk of cash on luggage and changes. I wasn’t quick enough to get the super low fares to Hawaii for a family trip but I did get fares that saved well over a 100,000 points for us over other airline options available to me. By the way the flight schedules out of Northern California to Hawaii are ideal for families and I must admit I absolutely detest red-eye so SWA is usually in my comfort zone.
Gary, I appreciate your comments but I am a little confused on a couple of items. First, if you are playing the CC and points game, even modestly, you probably aren’t subject to baggage fees anyway as most cards give them free for a number of traveling guests. You also mentioned saving hundreds of thousands of points on such charges as well as change fees though you are a casual traveler. That seems like an awful lot of casual travel to achieve that kind of savings so I am not sure how to square the two.
On the schedules for California-based flyers, we agree wholeheartedly.
Nine of us (ages 2 to 92) and 18 bags just got back from a great trip to WDW using SWA. Sorry I didn’t get back to sooner to help you sort out your confusion with my post and your lack of appreciation of the significant savings/benefits that can be had with SWA. First of all you can quickly get yourself squared away by looking at our cost below and realize that similar savings will be taken advantage of with our family about 4 times this year and countless times in past years. We also have 2 trips to Hawaii coming up this summer but the groups are smaller but the savings are just as significant. When my wife and I fly alone or with the 2 grand-kids which happens fairly frequently, we generally save at least 50k on those trips.
My quick overview of our situation with SWA is that we both qualify for companion passes and my oldest adult son recently earned one. On this WDW trip we took full advantage of the 3 companion passes but for the other 6 of us I used 132,000 points+tax (originally I did better but I was forced to make a free change to a higher priced date). I might add that our non stop flights were very convenient, dep OAK 1020am and Arr MCO 620pm and Dep MCO 345pm Arr OAK 705pm).
I must of admit to be relatively uninformed about the current ins and outs of flying domestically on other carriers since I made a significant switch away from the legacy carrier about 5 years ago. I should also add that on SWA, I rarely if ever have problems getting multi award seats but I remember this being a major issue for me before I converted. Regardless, I wonder how much a trip like this (or even a smaller group) would have cost you. Hopefully some of the change fees and baggage fees would be waved because of your status and multi CCs. Without using a calculator I suspect that you can quickly recognize how I can easily save 100,000s of points over all other options.
Fair enough, though your use case is incredibly unique. You’re right that traveling with 18 checked bags would be expensive for most (though some credit cards would allow 8 on an itinerary.) But Dee travelers travel with as many as you do, still fewer with two pieces of checked luggage per person and further, I’m curious if any of those could have been carried on thus reducing the benefit in dollar value.
Regardless, you’re getting great value and made the right choice for your situation.
Don’t know if you have much experience traveling with a couple of toddlers with their strollers and toys along aa 92 year old mom with an electric scooter and her paraphernalia but carrying on bags usually isn’t a good option. On the other hand last month on a convention trip with 3 of our employees to the east coast we had similar amount of luggage per person because of paperwork and samples etc. Beyond that with my wife and my personal companion passes we saved about $1200 in airfare for our small business. To top it all off, I decided to overpay on our 4 hotel rooms by a total of $400 by booking on the SWA hotel site picking up 64k SWA bonus points. It was a good trade off,, However the big win were the points putting my wife over the top for her second companion that I will immediately put to use by canceling 4 future tickets and make them a companion tickets.
And the biggest reason is that you are still flying southworst even with a companion pass. Last time out was in VX F, may she rest in peace, with the family. The fancy snacks in F were clutch to keeping the toddler in check. The FA allowed me to grab a few extra bags of gummy bears for the road! People should splurge a little flying for vacation. The hotel is not as important as the flight there because you will be outside on the beach!
I agree with your points and agree that Southwest isn’t the best way to get to Hawaii however if I lived in a market like Oakland I would consider it if I could wrangle a super cheap price and/or companion pass it. Besides, it will pull the infrequent travelers off some of the other airlines which might help with TSA lines, etc.
I don’t see how Southwest can be competitive with those times. Also they don’t have First Class, no airport lounges and now meals on the planes. I am in Kona, HI right now and flew in First Class in a lie flat seat. Southwest would never be an option for me. They are very rarely the cheapest option. And if checked bags are an issue you can always get a credit card with AA and get a free checked bag for you and your entourage.
Being Hawaii-based, it’s been interesting watching this unfold through a local perspective. Many are excited to see WN here, but many are also blindly loyal to HA. Personally, I’ll stick to flying AS for out-of-State travel and HA for inter-island travel. WN was never going to be an option for me because of the inability to select seats. But, I’m glad they’re here and glad they’re giving all of us more options.
I didnt see any mention of the ability to cancel or change flights/dates for ‘free’. Try that on the other airlines. Military get free bags on any airline, so that’s not an issue. You have many valid points but that’s just what differentiates these carriers regardless of where they fly. Personally, I see myself flying to Hawaii on WN and back on another airline. Its all about schedules and layovers from the East Coast.
Steve, I am with you on flying another carrier from the east coast.
In regards to the change/cancel policy, I have a few thoughts and these are directed not really toward you but for the community at large.
I simply don’t feel the need to mention every single benefit of flying with Southwest in every post on the carrier. While their change/cancellation policy (best in the US) is often brought up and I even chose to use this benefit recently on a non-Hawaii bound Southwest flight, the truth is very few people need to change or cancel their flights. Maybe you change yours all the time so for you, there is an outsized benefit. It’s much like the checked bag benefit. It’s great if you need it, and you don’t have another credit card that takes care of the fee, but that doesn’t mean it justifies paying more than 2:1 from another carrier. West coast flyers love Alaska, and I love their frequent flyer program, but being based in Pittsburgh, their myriad benefits are mostly useless to me (and I am an MVP elite.) If you are based in Seattle – don’t fly anybody else, but even if you are based on the west coast it is hard to recommend Alaska more broadly until they have a consistent network outside of the west coast.
I also didn’t bring up that miles earned from the trips in the Rapid Rewards program are less valuable at a near 2:1 ratio to Alaska due to their generous award chart and Southwest’s lack of partners. For some reason, Southwest fans (I am obviously a user of Southwest but not a member of the cult) are quick to point out that I didn’t mention bags fly free, or that their generous change policy is incredibly valuable. Yes, it is. But there are other detractors that I also didn’t mention, like a network that doesn’t yet include Canada or even much of the near Caribbean. I didn’t mention that they fail to offer a business class cabin despite selling torturous cross-country flights that other carriers wouldn’t dream of offering just coach. I didn’t mention that Rapid Rewards has an amazing top tier elite but no other incentives to fly the carrier between 35,000 and 110,000 miles.
Southwest lovers can’t tout the benefits of Southwest (best change policy in the business) but ignore the inability to fly outside of North America and the “free” upgrades to lie flat business class across oceans that United, Delta, and American would give flyers clocking the same amount of miles in a year.
Actually, I guess they can… this is, after all, the internet.
By what metric is Alaska the largest airline to Hawaii? They don’t have the most daily flights – United does. Most seats is again United thanks to their widebody flights. Alaska and Hawaiian do fly out of more US airports to Hawaii than United though – is that the metric you’re using?
You forgot to mention how most of these flights are going to be going 1/4 empty due to weight restrictions. Doing it with planes never meant to do it.
you do know that 737-800 are frequently used by the United, Alaska, Sun Country, and Westjet on a daily basis?
Coming from a loyal Southwest customer for over a decade, I wouldn’t fly them to Hawaii. I’m based in NOLA and SWA is our biggest carrier, so I consider myself pretty lucky that almost anywhere I would need to fly to ranges from 90 mins to three hours flying time, Southwest is perfect for me as I just need a safe ride with friendly FA’s and something to drink when I need it. I regard Southwest as a shuttle to get me from Point A to Point B, nothing more. Destination like Hawaii, however, I want a little bit more than just a shuttle ride. Five hours on a single class 737 with no inseat power or real food just doesn’t sound like an enjoyable time. I’ll ride on Hawaiian to get to Hawaii.
Except when I fly over the pond I’m usually in the back of the plane or on SWA with the rest of the cheapskates who are just trying to get someplace very nice other then 30,000 feet in the air and don’t care about laying flat or having an upgraded TV dinner. For that reason, now days I bring my own food on all airlines. That is except when I go to NOLA where I want to arrive starving so I can jump right into stuffing myself with your cuisine. I also can’t wait until my next flight home from NOLA, unwrapping my muffaletta and to my delight smelling up the whole plane.
i AGREE WITH THE AUTHOR OF THIS ARTICLE; I’VE NOTICED THAT SOME OF SOUTHWEST’S PERSONNEL, SUCH AS GATE AGENTS ARE NOT VERY WELL TRAINED, AND THAT THERE APPEARS TO BE A HIGH TURNOVER OF SUCH PERSONNEL. THEY DON’T APPEAR TO UNDERSTAND THEIR OWN RULES, AS WELL AS FEDERAL LAWS, REGARDING BRINGING MOBILE ASSISTIVE DEVICES ONBOARD THE AIRCRAFT, EVEN IF THEY HAVE THE STORAGE ROOM ONBOARD. WHEREAS THERE ARE SOME SOUTHWEST EMPLOYEES WHO ARE DEDICATED AND COMPASSIONATE, THERE ARE OTHER WHO ARE JUST RUDE AND NASTY. EVEN IF ONE COMPLAINS ABOUT SUCH EMPLOYEES, SOUTHWEST WILL NEVER DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. RATHER, THEY TRY TO BUY YOU OFF, WITH A $100.00 CREDIT ON Y OUR NEXT FLIGHT. I DON’T NEED THEIR ATTITUDE, AND THEY CAN KEEP THEIR FREE BAGGAGE ALLOWANCE. MY NEXT FLIGHT TO HAWAII WILL NOT BE WITH SOUTHWEST.
I’d point out that it is United Airlines, not Alaska, that provides the most seats to Hawaii from the US.
Re: Cabin pets not allowed – The reason probably has much more to do with Hawaii’s strict pet immigration policy than Southwest. Since Hawaii is an island with such fragile flora and fauna, there is an extensive list of requirements to bring a pet to Hawaii (https://www.pettravel.com/immigration/Hawaii.cfm) that isn’t worth the time it would take Southwest to check and confirm all the documentation. The only reason to bring a non-service animal to Hawaii would be if you were moving there, and you might be better off contracting a pet moving company in that case.
Could be. Valid points.
I nearly wet myself laughing … I thought I was reading The Onion at first. Southwest does not want to fly to Hawaii from all of the US, and when fares started @ $49.00, many flights have filled up. The rest of the story was total yawn … Maybe I should fly Southwest to Hawaii, at least I know you won’t be on the plane LOL!
Always great to meet a fan. Thanks for reading!
I like your report on Southwest. First as a courtesy we should be supporting our island airline. And we should know that you can not have discounted airlines without some type of glitches. Everyone might say oh it is good we will have competition but people need to also understand operating a airline is costly and if you understand business you will understand the costs involved. It does not help when medical and liability insurance cost of labor maintenance of airports etc goes on and on and you have this airline promising cheap airfare over the water you have to wonder how long they can hold those prices for. So people think about it and know a airline cannot hold cheap airfares for too long and if you are spoiled then this airline will not be for you.. if you take it don’t grumble it is your fault and you chose it.
34″ pitch on Southwest? Please stop making stuff up.
Completely agree with you that Southwest flights to Hawaii are great only for those living on the west coast. We just returned from a trip to the Big Island on Southwest and had to spend a night in Oakland going and a night in Phoenix coming home — so the expense of staying in hotels two additional nights (not to mention the exhaustion at the end of a vacation) negates any savings on the tickets. I’m a big fan of SW and all of our flights were on time, planes were new and nice, etc. but yes, they need to figure out how to add the red-eye flights before I would fly them to Hawaii again.