Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines Announce First Route Changes Since Merger

Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines have announced their first coordinated capacity change since Alaska Air Group acquired Hawaiian. Let's examine what this entails.

Route Changes

While Hawaiian and Alaska will continue to operate as distinct brands, the two carriers are now under the same ownership. This will allow them to better coordinate flight schedules and modify them as needed.

Four route changes have emerged with two taking effect on April 22nd, 2025 and the other two on June 12th. These involve either Alaska decreasing frequencies on a particular route in favor of Hawaiian increasing service or vice versa.

On April 22nd, Alaska Airlines will decrease daily service from Seattle (SEA) to Honolulu (HNL) from five to four daily flights. Simultaneously, Hawaiian will increase to two daily flights, thus taking over the slot for Alaska's fifth-daily flight.

Like its current daily flight to Seattle, Hawaiian will use the Airbus A330-200 for this new second daily service.

On June 12th, Alaska Airlines will add a second daily flight between San Diego (SAN) and Kahului (OGG). Simultaneously, Hawaiian will axe its current service on this route.

As demonstrated above, these changes show a small shakeup in airline frequencies as the two airlines work to better allocate their aircraft.

There will surely be more changes to come as the two airlines proceed under their new joint ownership. 

Implications

With this coordination, Alaska will be able to further strengthen its network from Hawaii and grow its network with connecting opportunities to Hawaiian flights bound for Asia-Pacific and Oceania.

One issue that has been brought up with Hawaiian's second daily Seattle flight is aircraft utilization. As mentioned earlier, the airline is using the Airbus A330 on both flights.

While it is great to see more widebody capacity added to the Seattle route, the way Hawaiian is scheduling that second daily A330 is what has left people confused.

The current schedule for the new second flight sees Hawaiian's Flight HA634 depart Honolulu at 9:15 pm and arrive in Seattle the following morning at 6:15 am.

However, instead of the usual two or so hour turnaround, the A330 will sit in Seattle for over nine hours. It will depart on HA633 at 3:55 pm and arrive in Honolulu at 6:50 pm that same day.

To be fair, Hawaiian's current Seattle flight, HA22/23, arrives in Seattle at 9:25 pm, spends the night in Seattle, and departs back to Hawaii at 7:15 am the following morning. However, this is the norm with Hawaiian's nighttime flights to the West Coast.

The most probable reason for Hawaiian scheduling a long layover in Seattle for its second flight would be to better schedule the A330 up with operating another long-haul flight after arriving in Honolulu.

With some routes eventually seeing an increase in Alaska Airlines service and a resulting decrease in Hawaiian service, a massive implication for passengers will be the change in onboard product.

Hawaiian's onboard service is distinctly Hawaiian and it is tailored such as to make passengers feel the spirit of the islands as soon as they step onboard. Such is not the case with Alaska.

It remains to be seen if Alaska will introduce some additional service enhancements for its Hawaii flights. As of now, there are no plans for this.