shoelu

LIHUE – Kauai residents will soon have another option to choose from when planning their interisland travel.

Southwest Airlines has announced that it intendeds to serve Hawaii non-stop, from California airports, including Oakland, San Diego, San Jose and Sacramento, and will also be offering interisland flights.

The company is currently awaiting approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.

“The way we plan to serve Hawaii, requires us to share these initial details now, so that our facilities in the airports will be ready for all that we intended to offer,” said Southwest president Tom Nealon. “We’re on-track with our plans to sell tickets this year and are respectfully engaged in the process to receive FAA authorization to operate between the mainland and the islands.”

In the latest of a two-year series of community meetings across the islands to gain insight ahead of potential service, Nealon shared details of the announcement with tourism, civic and government leaders Thursday and further shared the carriers intention to eventually offer some interisland flights, as operations ramp up initially, across airports in Hawaii.

Recently, Nealon said he purchased an interisland ticket and that it was very expensive, stating the airline will come in with lower and introductory fares.

Currently, Hawaiian Airlines dominates the interisland market, with more than a 90 percent share, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

Island Air offered interisland flights through November 2017, when the company closed.

Mokulele is the only other company that offers daily flights between most Hawaiian Islands, but only offers direct flights from Kona to Oahu, Maui and Molokai. The company also operates a once a week direct flight between the Kamuela-Waimea airport in Waimea and Kahului on Maui.

Southwest representatives said that when the company enters a market, prices historically come down in part, because of the airline’s policy of no bag fees and no change fees.

Southwest representatives did not respond to questions from TGI reporters before deadline on Friday.

The airline’s initial plan is to serve four airports: Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu, Kahului Airport on Maui, Lihue Airport on Kauai and the Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keahole, on the leeward side of the Big Island.


Southwest plans to fly interisland - The Garden Island

WestCoastHercs

I was surprised not to see LAX as one of the pairing cities...

And we don't charge for surfboards, right?

uaav8r

Will SW offer redeyes to the mainland?

slimothy

Lots of talk about it. The system planning guys are pushing for it. I think most of us consider it s forgone conclusion, but I don’t expect to see a whole lot of red eyes in our future.

Smooth at FL450

To me it's a smart move, unless we want to compete head-to-head with UAL/AA/Delta/Hawaiian/Alaska/Sun Country and whoever else serves that market. Maybe someday, but that market has plenty of competition already. Look at who operates out of SAN/SJC/OAK/SMF to Hawaii and you'll see who SWA is going after.

slimothy

I think most of us assumed that HI flying was the whole reason LAX was opening as a domicile. Based on the timing, that would make sense.

full of luv

That base can cover more stations. Plus the rotations can be built SW style, LAX-OAK-HNL then HNL-SAC-LAX

Smooth at FL450

I'm sure it is. LAX-SJC-Hawaii and LAX-SMF-Hawaii

Maybe someday LAX-Hawaii but that's a much bigger gorilla to wrestle.