Originally Posted by
WindWalker999
Wasn’t there talk of adding interisland legs to NEO trips at HAL? Guess SWA jumped into that market share. So at HAL what is going on with the JAL deal that was all over the news last year? Will that increase interisland codeshare traffic when it kicks in full bore?
The NEO is supposed to reduce the amount of interisland flying needed by decreasing the amount of connections through HNL. Even with the addition of the NEO, Hawaiian seems to still be operating a full interisland schedule on the 717.
As far as the JAL JV, still no word on that. From what I've heard from friends at Hawaiian, parts of the JV might affect scope language in the contract, so that needs to get sorted out too. JAL supposively wants to take their fleet from the leisure Hawaii market into the more lucrative business market, and let Hawaiian do the Japan flying. But JAL wants to create a low cost carrier that flies to Hawaii at the same time.
Maybe Southwest expansion into Hawaii will scare off Ingram and investors to finally sell and merge in the end. Hawaiian has lasted 90 years by itself and seems fairly confident in the media to compete agressively against the cash cow of Southwest. Only time will tell how this all plays out.