LUV FLYING

Article by Dave Segal for StarAdvertiser.com in Honolulu:

Southwest sizes up isles for new route

Hawaii's tourism industry welcomed news yesterday that Southwest Airlines, known for its low cost and no-frills service, might add Hawaii to its route map.

Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said the Dallas-based company will make a decision before the end of the year on whether to add larger Boeing 737-800 airplanes to its fleet, which would "bring us the opportunity to consider a destination like Hawaii."

That pleased state tourism liaison Marsha Wienert.

"With their network of flights, especially in the Midwest, it opens up a whole new market that has been virtually untapped for some time," she said.

Keith Vieira, senior vice president for Starwood Hotels & Resorts in Hawaii, echoed the sentiment.

"This opportunity with Southwest will enable us to better reach their customer base in the Southwest area of the United States, which is a very good market to Hawaii. ... It will be a definite boon to travel for us if they're able to connect to us directly," he said.

Bruce Fisher, founder-owner of Hawaii Aloha Travel (Hawaii-Aloha.com), said more airline seats are always a good thing for Hawaii, but more specifically, Southwest's involvement would be a plus for his agency.

"For us personally it's really great because Texas is the second most popular place (behind the West Coast) that people come to Hawaii from at our agency," Fisher said. "That would be great news. ... The more airlift the better, the more airlines the better."

As to whether Southwest's entrance would lower fares between Hawaii and the mainland, aviation consultant Mike Boyd said it is not likely.

"What people normally think of with Southwest is low fares, but if they fly between the West Coast and Honolulu, there's already low fares up the wazoo, and on a long haul like that, Southwest doesn't have any cost advantage over, say, Hawaiian Airlines," said Boyd, of the Evergreen, Colo.-based Boyd Group.

"What Southwest is seeing here is it wants the traffic that Hawaii can bring them, but there's nothing where you're going to see $59 fares to San Antonio," Boyd said.

Adding Hawaii would provide a plum destination for regular Southwest customers redeeming their frequent-flier credits.

Southwest, which agreed last month to buy AirTran Airways for $1.4 billion in cash and stock, said because Boeing 737-800s -- a stretched version of the 737-700 -- have more seats, costs would be 10 percent to 15 percent less. The company said the 737-800s would have 175 seats compared with 137 seats on its 737-700s.

The 737-800s would still have higher costs than Hawaiian Airlines' fleet, Boyd said. Hawaiian flies Boeing 767-300 ER (264 seats) and the Airbus A330-200 (294 seats) between Hawaii and the mainland.

Southwest CEO Kelly said yesterday that the earliest Southwest could take delivery of the 737-800s would be 2012.

Hawaiian, which is the top-ranked airline for customer service and has posted 10 straight profitable quarters, said it would remain competitive.

"Hawaiian today competes successfully with just about every other airline in the country, and should (Southwest) decide to enter the fray, it would be no different," Hawaiian spokesman Keoni Wagner said.

In addition to low cost, Southwest is known for its "bags-fly-free" policy and customer service.

"With Southwest, their success over the years is the way they've treated customers," Boyd said. "They may only give you a bag of peanuts, but it's the way they treat customers. Southwest is a company that doesn't have passengers. It has groupies that follow them around."

Doug Masters

Well Airtran fa's are going swimming to get raft certified by the end of November. Maybe SWA knows this...

WHACKMASTER

No offense, but I think you're reading too far into it.

Doug Masters

Not reading into anything, just stating the fact that Da Tranny fa's are getting raft training.

WHACKMASTER

So that brings about the question for SWA guys. The rumors that we're hearing at AAI is that the B717s will be redistributed (at least some of the 86) to TX and/or CA. Now I've heard that they might do inter-island if the Hawaii flying starts up. You know how rumors are, but just wondering what the buzz is over there? Of course, this is all presuming that the deal goes through.

WHACKMASTER

It seemed like you were insinuating that the Tranny F/As are getting raft training for the potentially up and coming Hawaii flying over at SWA. Our F/As and pilots started to go to raft training well before the deal was announced and it was because we were going to start equipping some 737s with rafts and ETOPS equipment. This is going shave off about 30 mins of flt time between BWI-SJU and MKE-CUN. Right now we're restricted to 162 n.m. from shore. Also, Bermuda is in the short-term cards as well as other Carib destinations and South America.

Doug Masters

Didnt mean it that way. Just saying that maybe SWA knows the Tranny folks will be raft trained by the time of the merger so it makes hawaii a possibility. I'm on the outside looking in so take it with a grain of salt.

Fishfreighter

It won't happen anytime soon. Air Tran doesn't have an ETOPS certificate I'm aware of. It took Alaska 720 days from the time they applied to the granting of their ETOPS certification. The Feds don't give ETOPS away as Allegiant seems to have found out. Otherwise why would they have parked their 757s?

joepilot

What is the range of the 737-800 at max ZFW? I'm sure it can make it to HNL from the west coast, but how about from farther inland such as PHX? At what point do you have to start leaving people and bags behind in order to get there with legal ETOPS reserves?

Joe

Splash

Bags stay behind free!