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Forget about cruising altitude.
Southwest Airlines is still picking up momentum, at least locally, in its third year of flying in Hawaii.
Southwest’s second-year story here was all about trans-Pacific growth, but this year the carrier is focused on interisland service, which by fall it expects to increase about 60%. To meet the expected growth, the airline says it plans to scale up staffing in the islands by another third.
Southwest CEO Bob Jordan announced last week during his first trip to Hawaii that by September the airline plans to increase interisland trips to 60 per day from 38 per day to better serve day-trippers and business travelers.
Jordan, who took the reigns of Southwest in February, is a more than 30-year veteran of the carrier. He is focused on hiring, improving reliability and improving technology for staff and customers as he guides the carrier out of the pandemic.
He arrived in Honolulu on June 27 with other members of Southwest’s leadership team. They spent about a week in the islands, also stopping in Hilo, Kona, Lihue and Maui to meet with employees, and tourism and community decision-makers.
Jordan told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser during an interview Tuesday that Southwest remains deeply committed to Hawaii.
“No. 1, until you absolutely have no choice, we hold our ground. We stay in markets. So, pandemic or not, our desire is to stay in a market, because we’ve already decided it makes sense. We are going to be part of the community. We are going to be there. Those difficult circumstances don’t change that,” Jordan said. “Second, I think our product has been received really, really well. Our service has been received really, really well. Our people have been received really, really well.”
He said Hawaii’s pandemic recovery has been slower than other markets’ because it still had COVID-19-related travel restrictions until March. But since then, Jordan said, he has seen “very rapid” recovery, which has led to “substantial improvement” in the Hawaii market.
Jordan said business travel hasn’t quite come back, but “revenge travel” is real among leisure travelers, who have a pent-up desire to travel.
“Our leisure business is up substantially compared to 2019,” he said. “Our second- quarter operating revenue should be an all-time record, and that’s because primarily that leisure travel is up so much compared to 2019. I think Hawaii is no different.”
Andrew Watterson, Southwest’s executive vice president and chief commercial officer, who accompanied Jordan to Hawaii, said the airline is expecting a strong summer in Hawaii, where its load factors for trans-Pacific flights are currently running percentages in the 90s.
Watterson said load factors for interisland flights in Hawaii are currently running percentages in the 60s because business travel has not returned to the pre-pandemic level.
Jordan said there also has been significant interisland growth.
To meet demand, changes to Southwest’s interisland service include switching daily departures this month to five times daily between Honolulu and Kona, and Honolulu and Lihue; and increasing daily departures to six times daily in September. Interisland service between Honolulu and Hilo will rise to five times a day in September.
The carrier expanded Honolulu-to-Maui to eight flights per day in July, and will increase it to 11 in September.
Southwest increased its Kona-to-Maui flights to two trips per day in July, but will reduce it to one in September. The carrier added one Lihue-to-Maui trip per day in July and will keep that level of service in September.
Turbulent start
Southwest has had big dreams for Hawaii since entering the market on March 17, 2019. But just days before its Hawaii launch, its initial plan hit some turbulence with the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft following fatal crashes on Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines.
Southwest’s Hawaii expansion was interrupted again by the pandemic, which saw travel demand plunge because of fear of COVID-19 and government containment measures. As travel demand began returning in 2021, the carrier added new gateways in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas. It also added more flights in 2021 in San Diego and then an extra one in California cities Long Beach, San Jose and Oakland.
The 210-seat, more fuel- efficient MAX 8 aircraft was approved to start flying passengers in late 2020, and Southwest has been flying it in Hawaii. But the MAX 7 aircraft, a 172-seat plane that can travel even longer distances from Hawaii, is still delayed. The range of the MAX 7 aircraft, which appears to be on track for certification by year’s end, would allow Southwest to potentially offer direct service from as far away as Denver to Hawaii.
“There is always more stuff we can do in the western United States. Any place that we are the No. 1 airline in terms of customer size on the mainland that has demand for Hawaii — that’s an opportunity for us to fly nonstop,” Watterson said, but he added that for now Southwest’s focus is on maturing the market.
To be sure, Southwest has temporarily dialed back some of the growth in its trans-Pacific markets. Some of the schedule adjustments are an attempt to lessen the pressure that all U.S. airlines are dealing with as staffing shortages and bad weather have led to higher rates of flight cancellations and delays, especially during the peak summer travel season.
Jordan said Southwest also is moderating mainland flights “to take some pressure off of the tourism.”
Mainland adjustments
Southwest’s schedule changes include adding service between Las Vegas and Kona and Las Vegas and Lihue in July and September. It added service between Sacramento, Calif., and Kona in July, but plans to exit that service, at least temporarily, in September.
The carrier’s schedule adjustment as of September will decrease trans-Pacific nonstop daily departures to Hawaii to about 23, down from 37 in July 2021.
It is reducing nonstop trans-Pacific service between Los Angeles and Honolulu and Los Angeles and Maui starting this month through at least September. It will temporarily stop offering nonstop service in September between Los Angeles and Kona and Los Angeles and Lihue.
Southwest decreased nonstop service between Honolulu and Long Beach, Oakland and Phoenix this month and will keep to that schedule in September. It will temporarily exit nonstop service between Long Beach and Maui in September.
From this month through at least September, Southwest is temporarily exiting nonstop service between Kona and Phoenix and San Diego. During the same period, it is also temporarily exiting nonstop service between Lihue and Phoenix and San Diego, as well as Maui and San Diego.
In September, Southwest is at least temporarily exiting nonstop service between Sacramento and Kona and Maui.
Southwest has characterized these changes as a snapshot in time rather than a permanent move. The airline also noted that as California’s largest carrier, it connects people in dozens of unique combination city-pairs every day, so not having a nonstop route does not necessarily mean that there isn’t service.
Third-year focus
After two years of rapid growth, Jordan and Watterson said Southwest’s third year is mostly focused on improving the customer experience for travelers to Hawaii and across the state.
“We grew rapidly and so we have facility challenges,” Jordan said. “We are making progress there.”
For example, he said Southwest is moving into preferential gates that are more convenient for Hawaii customers and is working on improving the luggage system and increasing access to kiosks and other infrastructure needs.
Watterson said Southwest has been bringing senior executives to Hawaii to assist in maturing the market, which he said needs about a 10% improvement on all functions to get to normal status.
Jordan said Southwest has improved reliability by operating its best aircraft, the 737 MAX 8, in the Hawaii market and keeping an operational spare in the islands.
Southwest also plans to bring Hawaii’s employee count to about 530 from 400 now.
“A lot of times an operational issue might be the plane might be late because it lands and there’s not enough staff to get it into a gate, so it has to wait 20 minutes,” Jordan said.
Watterson said some of the new hires also will go to a new control center that Southwest is opening in Honolulu this summer to coordinate activity at all five airports across the state. The move demonstrates Southwest’s dedication to Hawaii, he said.
“We usually only put control centers at our very largest stations like a Vegas or an Oakland, where we have well over 100 departures,” Watterson said.
Southwest jobs
Southwest Airlines also plans to bring Hawaii’s employee count to about 530 from 400 now.
>> To apply for a job, visit swa.is/HawaiiHiring.
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