United Airlines plans to invest $200 million in state’s airports

With increasing tourist arrivals to the state comes increasing investment.

United Airlines, the No. 1 airline flying to Hawaii, plans to invest $200 million in upgrades to Hawaii airports through 2027.

Oscar Munoz, United’s chief executive officer, said in an interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that Hawaii is a “leisure market with a lot of demand” and that the carrier plans to invest “well-earned money” back into the state.

Munoz met with Gov. David Ige, tourism officials and some of his 1,400 local airline employees while in Hawaii last month.

Munoz said United plans to invest $200 million into modernizing the tools and resources that its Hawaii employees use at state airports to make the experience better for their customers. He said he supports the creation of an Airport Authority to ease the way for the state to complete its ongoing airport infrastructure upgrades.

“We couldn’t be more supportive of a faster, better modernization of the product (state airports) that is the image of Hawaii to the millions of tourists that come here,” Munoz said. “It couldn’t be more needed. All of us that fly here constantly have seen the effects of time.”

Munoz also said he isn’t worried about coming competition from Southwest Airlines, which announced earlier this year that it plans to begin selling tickets between Hawaii and the mainland before the end of 2018.

United, which has been flying to Hawaii for 70 years, added 11 new routes and 363,522 seats to the neighbor islands between 2017 and 2018, the Hawaii Tourism Authority said. With the increase in service, United’s Hawaii business this year will include 11,985 flights with 2.63 million seats.

The carrier is shifting schedules to make it easier to connect to Hawaii via its seven domestic hub cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver, New York, Houston and Washington, Munoz said.

United’s additional direct neighbor island capacity initially benefited from increased demand but then dipped slightly due to the Kilauea eruption on Hawaii island and the additional capacity that other carriers have put into the state, he said.

“From our perspective it is working out nicely. I think our expectations were probably slightly more,” Munoz said. “Exogenous factors have affected it, and of course you’ve seen a little bit of softening, but again we really haven’t changed much of our volume because we believe in the market.”

United remains the state’s dominant carrier despite continued airline expansion in the isles from multiple carriers. Along with United, Hawaiian Airlines, AirAsia X, Scoot, Japan Airlines and Virgin America introduced new service in 2017. In 2018 and 2019, HTA anticipates additional service from United as well as Air Canada, Sun Country Airlines, Southwest Airlines and West Jet.

Munoz said United plans to shift scheduling at hubs so consumers can leave the mainland overnight and get to Hawaii in the morning. The carrier is expected to launch a major scheduling change at its Denver hub in February to allow for shorter connections between flights to Hawaii.

Munoz said United is monitoring Airport Authority legislation and the unfolding Hawaii Tourism Authority leadership shake-up. HTA President and CEO George Szigeti was fired by the HTA board in June and will leave his post Oct. 31. The organization’s No. 2 and No. 3 top positions also have been vacant since the spring.

“It’s important that we get (HTA leadership) settled,” Munoz said.

Despite the uncertainty, United is working with the state Department of Transportation to move forward with the development of a new Diamond Head concourse at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport. Representatives from the Airlines Committee of Hawaii, including United, along with the state Department of Transportation’s Airports Division are serving on a selection committee to find a developer to lead the design and construction of the new facility.

United said it hopes that the selection process will begin this fall and be completed by next year. The carrier said it looks forward to working with the state and key consultants over the next two to three years to finalize an environmental impact report, which is required before construction could start.

ON THE MOVE

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>> HawaiiUSA Federal Credit Union has hired Keith Masuda as its commercial loan underwriting manager. He has more than 20 years in the banking and financial services industry. Masuda was vice president and senior strategic account executive at Central Pacific Bank. He also held other key positions at City Bank, Bank of Hawaii and AVCO Financial Services of Hawaii.

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