It’s soon going to take more time, effort and possibly money for some Hawaiian Airlines passengers to fly between the neighbor islands and the mainland.
The state’s largest carrier is implementing a new policy June 1 that will require passengers who booked their interisland tickets separately from their Honolulu-mainland tickets to exit security in Honolulu, reclaim their bag, run it through agricultural screening, re-check their bag, pay any required baggage fees and then re-clear security.
"This is going to be a huge pain in the okole for folks, and perhaps cause loads of missed connections for people who book ‘normal’ connection times," said Rick Cabral, a frequent traveler from Wahiawa and a member of FlyerTalk, an interactive community of frequent travelers.
But Hawaiian spokesman Keoni Wagner stressed that most passengers won’t be affected.
"This change is not going to apply to the vast majority of our customers, who already fly on a single-ticket itinerary," Wagner said.
"The same holds true for most travelers today whether you’re booking travel through an individual airline or an online agency. Almost all travel that has connecting flights in the itinerary is today booked on a single ticket."
Hawaiian said it is making the change in its "interline" baggage policy due to new federal Department of Transportation regulations that the airline says make it increasingly difficult and risky for it to accommodate through-checked bags on separate tickets.
"Hawaiian Airlines faces serious fines if we through-check bags between carriers on separate tickets and incorrectly apply the carriers’ bag rules," Hawaiian said in a question-and-answer section on its website. "That rule means we can no longer afford to accommodate through-checked bags as a courtesy to our guests unless the travel is on a single ticket."
The airline said it also was concerned by incidents in which passengers through-checked their bags from other airlines on separate tickets and had bags delayed.
"It was possible, when booking tickets separately, to circumvent the minimum connection times intended to ensure that bags have time to connect between flights," Hawaiian said on its website. "It is too difficult to be as vigilant as we would like in handling our guests’ baggage without the control provided by a true interline or code-share booking. This is an important distinction. When the connecting flights between airlines are booked on the same ticket, our systems are able to consistently apply the baggage rules and ensure adequate connecting time for your bags."
Code-sharing allows a carrier to sell flights on another carrier. Interline e-ticketing allows customers to purchase a single e-ticket, check in once at their originating airport, receive boarding passes for connecting flights and pick up their luggage at the final destination.
The DOT regulations require, in part, that airlines apply the same baggage allowances and fees throughout a passenger’s journey if their ultimate ticketed origin or destination is a U.S. point. If you fly on two or more airlines with one ticket, you will pay a baggage fee only once. If you have separate tickets, you may need to pay a baggage fee each time you change airlines.
Hawaiian said it has interline and code-share agreements with a wide range of domestic and international airlines that allow passengers to book flights operated by multiple carriers on the same ticket.
"We never did have a provision that would through-check bags booked on separate tickets," Wagner said.
Wagner said the change in Hawaiian’s policy is not an attempt to generate more revenue, but airline analyst Bob Mann disagreed.
"This is clearly a revenue enhancement effort designed to defeat split-ticketing and preserve their higher O&D (origin and destination) pricing," said Mann, president of Port Washington, N.Y.-based R.W. Mann & Co.
"Hawaiian has better nonstop, through and connecting service, O&D service for which they hope to extract a premium."
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On the Net:
» www.hawaiianair.com/help/Pages/Interline-Baggage-Statement.aspx
