Southwest Airlines - announcement coming..

[macuu222]

They will come in with lower fares and Hawaiian and others will have to match them. But when everything settles down...they will probably have the same airfares to the mainland as all the others. And that goes for inter-island as well. What "will" make them very popular here is their policy of no change or baggage fees.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

More news from Southwest about their plans for the Hawaii inter-island market. No details on whether Hilo is included, but it sounds promising:

The short, high-demand, inter-island flights are squarely within Southwest’s wheelhouse, Southwest revenue chief Andrew Watterson said in an interview with Bloomberg News today.

“We see that big market with higher price points and it’s short haul, which is what we’re known for,” said Watterson, who was at Hawaiian Holdings Inc. before joining Southwest in 2013. “The size of the market and the prices led us to see that we can do it profitably.”

“What people miss is that intra-Hawaii is a big market,” he said. “It’s larger than intra-Texas. We built our airline on intra-Texas using the 737.” The inter-island market averaged 6,515 people a day traveling each way in the year through Sept. 30, Watterson said, citing U.S. Transportation Department data that don’t include connecting passengers. Texas had 6,212.
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2019/03/0...tive-says/

[kalakoa]

Still waiting for useful direct flights out of Hilo.

[PaulW]

"And that goes for inter-island as well"

I don't think so. Hawaiian has a monopoly and so the prices are way too high. When Aloha was around you could fly one-way to HNL for $50.

[leilanidude]

When Aloha was around you could fly one-way to HNL for $50.
-------
Price of jet fuel has more than doubled since then, too.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Price of jet fuel has more than doubled since then, too.

The price of jet fuel, like the economy itself is cyclical.
It would be difficult to drawn any definitive conclusion between airfare and jet fuel based on its price range over the past 20 years.
https://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=jet-fuel&months=240

Air passenger and air freight companies do try and base prices on operating costs which include fuel, going so far as to add fuel surcharges on negotiated rates for freight shippers, but the final cost also includes the elephant in the room - - prices charged by competitors.

Right now I can ship a 10 pound box with FedEx to Maui or Oahu for $3.80. That’s less than I paid 10 years ago. It’s because I can also ship that box with four other carriers if I so choose.

[PaulW]

Aloha airlines ceased operations on March 31, 2008. The price of jet fuel was almost double what it is now. In fact they gave high jet fuel prices as one of the reasons for its demise.

In any case, monopolies almost always lead to higher prices than necessary.

[Obie]

"On March 20, 2008, Aloha Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Citing record high fuel prices and inter-island competition with Go!, it ceased passenger operation 11 days later."

"On March 17, 2014, Mesa announced that Go! would cease service on April 1, 2014, with its aircraft re-deployed to support Mesa's operations on the U.S. mainland. The airline also stated that a long term increase in the cost of fuel had prevented the operation from being profitable"

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Citing record high fuel prices
...
The airline also stated that a long term increase in the cost of fuel

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a company say “we went out of business due to bad decisions on the part of our CEO, inaccurate assessments of the marketplace, blue sky thinking, and plain old bad luck.”

I have heard them say, “we’re bailing with golden parachutes for executives and board members intact however...”

[macuu222]

Why I like Southwest.

https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/southwest-airlines-customer-loyalty?fbclid=IwAR1PuVBpWSDy4cpSKuFYqEGOcnzuybxcc1inGKKAE3RvsLmjql6eXosNL0I&linkId=64245929&src=PREMFBK20190303