Hawaiian Airlines fixes website performance issues, but call center problems remain

Hawaiian Airlines said today that it has fixed performance issues with its website, but that some customers are still experiencing lengthy hold times and busy signals at the call center.

The carrier sent HawaiianMiles members a message on May 14 apologizing for issues on its website and long call center hold times. In an updated message today, Hawaiian said, “Our website is now fully restored. We have fixed the issues that were causing errors and invested in additional infrastructure to keep things running smoothly.”

The carrier’s updated message, however, continued to apologize for performance issues at its call center, where Hawaiian said “hold times remain much longer than we would like and callers may receive a busy signal when our holding queue reaches its limits.”

Hawaiian advised that it was making steady progress at its call center, where it was continuing to hire and train agents as quickly as possible.

The airline suggested that customers who needed to make a change to an upcoming, booked reservation, should consider doing so online here. But said customers who needed to utilize credit from a canceled or previously scheduled flight would need to contact Hawaiian.

Hawaiian’s system problems have come just as the carrier has begun to turn the corner. Hawaiian saw gains in close-in travel demand from North America during March but posted a significant first-quarter loss largely due to a slow start to the year.

The airline, which operates under the publicly traded holding company Hawaiian Holdings Inc., reported a first-quarter loss of $60.7 million, or $1.25 a share. The carrier’s adjusted first-quarter loss this year was $190.6 million, or $3.85 a share. When adjusted for nonrecurring costs, first-quarter diluted earnings were $1.23 a share.

The company reported first-quarter revenue of $182 million. That’s down more than 67% from $559.1 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2020, when all the pandemic-related turbulence began.

Peter Ingram, Hawaiian Airlines president and CEO, told investors during the company’s first-quarter earnings call late last month that the carrier began to see a “material improvement” in bookings for its North America routes as virus case counts began cresting in the U.S. in mid-January, even before the pace of vaccinations accelerated.

“Week by week for the rest of the quarter, the bookings pace continue to accelerate. Neighbor island bookings also improved, although not as much relative to pre-pandemic levels as North America,” he said. “If there was any doubt there is pent-up demand for leisure travel after a year of lockdowns, that doubt has now been dispelled.”

To be sure, Hawaiian and other carriers have put more domestic air seats into the Hawaii market for summer travel than at any summer before.