Major American carriers Delta (DL) and Alaska Airlines (AS) have announced new routes to Hawaii for the upcoming 2023-2024 Northern Hemisphere Winter season.

[MSP,OGG],[PAE,HNL]

Delta recently unveiled plans to fly nonstop from Minneapolis/St. Paul Wold-Chamberlain Airport (MSP) to Maui (OGG) in Hawaii. The service begins in time for the holidays, on December 16, 2023, and lasts until the end of March 2024.

This new route to Maui will complement Delta's existing services to not only Maui from other US Cities but also its very own Minneapolis to Honolulu route, also offered daily through the winter.

Although the route is very leisure-oriented, its nature of being 4,000 miles long would make it obvious that such a service would be operated using a wide-body aircraft fitted with long-haul business class seats. Indeed, Delta will use its Boeing 767-300ER aircraft on this service, which offers Delta One business seats, Premium Select seats, and Economy class seats branded as Main Cabin.

Alaska Airlines also aims to offer boosted services to Hawaii this upcoming season though the newly announced route is very different from Delta’s. Instead of focusing on connecting hubs with more destinations, Alaska has chosen to focus on the point-to-point model more than ever.

This winter 2023-24 season, AS will operate a brand new route from Everett Paine Field Airport (PAE) and Honolulu Daniel K. Inouye Airport (NHL). This route will be operated using the Boeing 737, which seats passengers in either Domestic First class or Economy class.

The reason why Alaska has decided that Everett, WA needs a route to Hawaii is evident: Alaska’s main hub in Seattle is over 40 miles away to the south and inconvenient to those living in the very heavily populated Sonomish county of western Washington. The airport is already served by Alaska Airlines to various cities along the west coast and even though it’s a small city and airport, the demand to visit warmer weather destinations is so significant during the winter months that Alaska believes it can operate this route profitably. 

The PAE-HNL route begins in time for winter vacation on November 17, 2023, and will be a new year-round service operating daily in north directions. The flight will take 5-6 hours depending on tailwinds and weather conditions.

Hawaii has long been a popular tourist destination for those living on the mainland and wishing to escape winter, and its distance from the rest of the country makes it challenging to visit. By adding more point-to-point services to the archipelago isolated in the Pacific Ocean, Delta, and Alaska will be able to better serve their people from the mainland and other countries who wish to visit this tropical paradise!