In my last post I discussed Domestic Flights to Hawaii, so this time I’m going to talk about flying inter-island on Hawaiian Airlines. Why? Because, if you really want to maximize your Hawaiian vacation, it’s best to visit multiple islands, which requires flying. Of course, some may end up flying simply because of a lack of direct flights to the island they’re visiting. And, while I’ll discuss the other inter-island carriers in a later post, Hawaiian is the options most will choose because of its relationship with other airlines, its fleet, and frequencies.
The dominant island for inter-island travel is, unsurprisingly, Hawaiian Airlines. They fly an all jet fleet of Boeing 717-200s (MD-95s) to most destinations.
Flights to Molokai & Lanai are operated by the airline’s regional subsidiary, Ohana by Hawaiian, using ATR 42-500s. Hawaiian maintains two inter-island hubs at Honolulu and Kahului, Maui. From both their hubs you can fly to any of the islands:
The benefits of flying Hawaiian are the larger aircraft size, frequency, and the ability to redeem miles. In fact, Hawaiian has many partners from which you can redeem miles for inter-island travel:
As you can see, much like long haul domestic travel to Hawaii, Korean Airlines SkyPass offers the best value. Virgin American would seem to be a great value, 6,000 elevate points are equivalent to 12,000 Amex Membership Rewards points. This isn’t a bad value, and is equivalent to a United MileagePlus saver level redemption. Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles transfer 1:1 from Amex membership rewards as well, putting it on par with Virgin America’s offer.
As a reminder, the Amex EveryDay Preferred earns 3pts/$ on groceries, 2pts/$ on gas, and 1pt/$ on everything else with a 50% bonus for making 30 transactions during your billing cycle. So if you’re trying to earn an inter-island award on credit card spend, the EveryDay Preferred card is the way to go. But rather than redeeming miles, you may want check prices first, as they can be as low as $70-something one-way. It’s also worth noting that Hawaiian charges a $25 checked bag fee ($15 for HawaiianMiles members), which is waived for Hawaiian Airlines World Elite MasterCard cardholders, but you have to use that card to book your ticket.
In terms of flight experience, Hawaiian recently refurbished its fleet of 717s with leather wrapped slimline seats in a 2 + 3 configuration. The seats have minimal padding and are a little tight, but for flights that last at most 45 minutes, it’s no problem at all.
Hawaiian recently introduced Extra Space seats on their fleet of 717s as well. Extra Space seats are the same economy seat, but with a few inches of extra pitch. While the extra legroom isn’t all that important, the seat does offer zone 2 boarding, which is important to me because bin space is LIMITED. And at $10 extra per segment, it isn’t that much of a splurge. The only problem with Extra Space seating is that availability is really limited and only select seats are available for purchase at booking, the rest may be purchased during check-in only.
Doesn’t matter which class of service you choose, on Hawaiian’s 717 service you’ll always be offered a rotating juice selection, water, or coffee. Other beverages are available for purchase, unless of course, you’re flying First…
Hawaiian’s fleet of 717s do have a small First Class cabin, comprised of plusher seats in a 2+2 configuration. To me it isn’t worth the extra cost, even if you get free drinks and snacks, and it seems it’s there more as a perk for HawaiianMiles elites.
No matter where you sit, if you’re flying from Honolulu to Kahului, Kona, or Hilo, take a seat on the side of the aircraft with 2 seats per row… These seats offer the best views of Honolulu, Lanai, Molokai, and Maui as you fly over them ?
Great inter-island service. BUT, when I lived there (2011-2013) it was cheaper to fly to Houston, Las Vegas or Phoenix roundtrip, so we’d go to mainland instead.
Mahalo Steve, that is very true! My last inter-island flight was around $300 for the wife & I, while we flew to the PNW for about $700. But when you factor in hotel, food, car rental, etc. traveling out of state is WAY cheaper!
Used Hawaiian twice in two different family vacations to Hawaii. First was in 2014 a flight from HNL-LIH and the second was last year a flight from KOA-OGG. Both flight were OK. The problem I had with Hawaiian was with their airport personnel. On both occasions my family was treated like trash. I had never seen people so rude working for an airline. We had reservations through an overall Delta award and I don’t know if that was the reason they treated us so bad. They wanted to charge us for everything during check-in and used loud voice all the time. When I tried to ask why they were charging us so much for some of the volumes they asked me to not speak another word like they were some kind of authority. During the 20 minutes flight the plane was pretty empty and I was on the last row o the plane with no window. I asked the FA if I could move towards the front of the plane after the wings so I could get a better view to take some pictures. He told me loud and clear I was not an elite passenger with Hawaiian and I had to stay where I was. If it was possible to swim between islands I would just to not have to fly this airline again.
Aloha Santastico, you bring up an excellent point. While your in-flight experience is unfortunate, your ground experience is typical. I’ve found that usually (but not always) Hawaiian’s FAs on inter-island routes are pretty good, and often, proactive. There are bad ones, as with any other airline, which you had the misfortune of interacting with, but their ground people are just the worst ever. They all seem to do anything but assist customers; I had to wait 15 minutes in the bag drop line for someone to grab my checked bag last time I flew out of OGG… and there were tons of employees around doing NOTHING. Signage is also minimal to nonexistent, especially at HNL, making things even more confusing. Delayed flight? Don’t expect the ground staff to say anything. But I’ll be going over individual experiences in future posts.
I even asked my wife if they were just angry or jealous that while most of the passengers are just there on vacation and having a great time in those amazing islands they have to work and not enjoy anything. Again, it was just terrible and twice in a row in two different years. I left there with a terrible image of that airline.
I have to agree. HAL agents have one of the worst customer service attitudes from the curb all the way to the gate. They have a snarky attitude and either forget or don’t give a hoot that the flying public are the reason they have a job. I’ve been to the islands many times. Living on the west coast affords that access. I try to avoid HAL as much as possible for mainland travel. Unfortunately, hard to do inter-island. Hear that HAL management. Part of your financial difficulties are directly related to your customer service, or lack thereof.
No kidding Aireye… for inter-island flying, we’re a captive market; unless we’re willing to fly turboprops and/or do some funky routing to get to our destination. Sadly, Hawaiian isn’t the only company that has near monopoly status in Hawaii… The others give equally bad service.
I redeemed AA miles for OGG-LIH and it was only 5,000 miles per person. Your chart says 15,000 miles. Am I missing something?
Aloha Andrew, the chart reflects the data in AA’s most recent award chart, and states miles for roundtrip redemptions. AA’s current award chart show 7,500 miles per segment for intra-Hawaii flights, or 15,000 miles roundtrip.