Southwest Airlines resumes growth plans for Hawaii

[macuu222]

Southwest is going to resume it's growth plans for Hawaii starting next month to add Kauai and Hilo!! Not sure if that means inter-island or mainland flights or maybe both?


https://www.khon2.com/news/southwest-ann...and-lihue/

[kalakoa]

growth plans for Hawaii starting next month

Still waiting for specifics instead of this fluffy "planning a plan to announce plans" plan.

[Chunkster]

Promising indicator, but I won't believe it until I can buy a ticket from Hilo to somewhere. HNL would be nice . . . mainland even better.

[Old Croc]

Interesting. Southwest is the largest operator of the 737 Max, with 34 in its fleet and hundreds more on order. It canceled thousands of flights since the aircraft was grounded in March following the second deadly crash. Seems like they're hardly in any position to grow.

[terracore]

Southwest Airlines is leaving Newark Airport due to 737 Max grounding: https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/26/89314...x-grounded

[Obie]

Southwest was basing fares on the cost of flying the Max and they were flying routes that were not profitable without the Max.
The best way for an airline to cut their losses is pull out of an airport.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Southwest Airlines announced some general plans for future expansion in the Hawaii market in 2020, except:

Watterson said another important variable that could affect Hawaii’s expansion plans (though this is not yet the case) is the recent repression on the vacation rental market.

“We oversee the rental laws and development plans on the islands,” Watterson said. “You cannot add more seats than there are.” There must be a balance.“
https://dailygamingworld.com/southwest-r...al-growth/

Southwest is dedicated to low cost air transportation, so their customers would most likely prefer accommodations at an affordable vacation rental or B&B. With less of those units available, Southwest may then ne forced to scale back expansion plans, which if it includes Hilo, could adversely affect residents in East Hawaii.

[PaulW]

Well done, Hawaii County! The wrecking of the economy is going as planned.

[Chunkster]

I didn't actually buy one, but Southwest is selling tickets on their website for ITO-HNL beginning January 19 as low as $39 one way with plenty of cheap seats showing available. AFAIK, they have announced no plans to fly ITO-Mainland, but that is much less likely to happen if the supply of affordable accommodations in East Hawaii dries up.

[macuu222]

Any bets about Southwest flying out of Hilo tomorrow? I read about SouthWest not flying the max plane now until mid June. Was wondering how that effects new scheduled service?

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/16/southwes...elays.html