My family has always flown either United or American to Hawaii on all our previous trips simply because we had booked far enough in advance (8-9 months!) to use our frequent flier miles. However, for our recent trip in November of 2003 we booked on a mere 6 month notice and were having difficulty using our miles. So, instead I started shopping around for the best deal and settled on Hawaiian, as I saved over $300 per person RT compared to United and American.

I was also somewhat interested to see if Hawaiian has better service than United or American, which quite frankly, seemed to have a less than friendly flight attendants on our route.

I booked my tickets on the web site (www.hawaiianair.com), which was a very easy procedure. Similar to many travel sites, I entered my departure and return dates, along with departure city and final destination (in my case San Francisco and Kona, on the Big Island). There is only one round trip flight offered from San Francisco to Honolulu, but several different inter-island flights from Honolulu to Kona. After entering passenger and billing information, I made my seating selection. Unfortunately, like every other airline website I have encountered, there is no place in the reservation to make a special meal request, so I have to call their 800 number to request kid's meals for my children.

Once you have purchased your electronic ticket Hawaiian will send you a confirmation and a link to their "Virtuallythere" electronic ticket system. It will update you with any changes to flight times or flight numbers.

It also should be noted that all inter-island flights have open seating.

Like Alaska and a number of other airlines, Hawaiian now offers web check in, or what they call Hele On Check In. This may or may not be a time saver. Yes, it's nice to get the boarding passes prior to the airport, but I would still have to check the bags curb side or at their baggage counter. SFO curb side can be half a mile long at times (or so it seems) and my husband isn't too keen on curb side check in either, so we opted to do regular check in.

Just another word about their web site. It does publish their menus and also their in-flight movie schedule, so I thought was a nice touch.

So how did my flights actually go?

San Francisco-Honolulu

Check in was a breeze. As I mentioned, I didn't do the web check in, but I did have the option of using the electronic check in kiosks at the Hawaiian ticket counters or going through the line. The line was quite short (we were the only flight leaving at that time) so we just opted to do regular check in. It only took us 5 minutes.

The plane pushed back out of the gate right on time. So far, so good! Fortunately, planes were not backed up at SFO so we were off quickly. The aircraft was a Boeing 767-300 with a 2-3-2 seating arrangement. My husband and I are both pretty tall (I'm 5'9 and he's 6'4) and quite frankly the leg room was horrible.

We were seated about 6-7 rows away from the lavatory and never noticed a bad smell.

Drink service started an hour later. All the usual refreshments: coffee, soft drinks, beer, wine, champagne twists, and cocktails. All alcoholic beverages were $5, as were headsets for the in-flight entertainment. In addition to a movie, it featured a show with several segments about Hawaii and its culture. That was very nice and a good way to get everyone in the mood for a vacation. By the way, screens are not on the back of chairs.

About 2 hours in meal service started. All special meals were served first, including the ones I ordered for my boys. I have to say that Hawaiian has the best kids meal I have ever seen. In fact I think my boys got more food than I did.

For everyone else, we had a choice of 3 entrees: a curry dish, a pasta dish, or a sandwich. I took the sandwich and my husband had the curry and both were pretty mediocre.

This particular flight had a lot of turbulence--probably the most I have ever had flying to Hawaii. However, the flight attendants were pretty lenient about people getting up even though the fasten seat belt lights were on. Only once when the Captain asked everyone to be seated did the flight attendants get strict about this.

Another plus about Hawaiian is shortly before landing their in-flight system gives specific directions on how to get around the Honolulu Airport and where to catch the Wiki Wiki (shuttle) over to the Inter-Island Terminal. This is so important. I remember getting lost the first time we came to this airport and ending up outside the terminal. Nowadays we would have to be re-screened, so pay attention!

Overall, I was very pleased with the quality of service on this leg of the flight.

Honolulu-Kona-Honolulu

This is not the fun part of the trip. As I mentioned earlier these flights do not have assigned seating, so about 40 minutes before departure, people start lining up near the gate, like a cattle call, waiting to get on. It's stupid, quite frankly. Why can't Hawaiian do like Southwest and give out boarding group assignments? At least people could sit in the waiting area that way and there would be a little less chaos.

Once boarding begins, it usually goes quite quickly. Since these flights are quite short (30 minutes or less), there's really not much time for a beverage service, so a prepackaged guava juice is about all you're going to get.

Kona is a tiny airport, so disembarkation takes place directly on the tarmac next to the terminal. Fortunately this is the dry side of the island but I doubt they have umbrellas for when it does rain as the airport is pretty much open air.

The return flight is pretty much the same deal. Cattle call open seating, although this time you're right next to a noisy runway (several private jets arrived when we were waiting as well as the Hawaiian jet for the return.)

Aircraft on inter-island flights are Boeing 717, with a 2-3 seating arrangement.

On the return we did electronic check in as the line was long and things seemed to be moving slowly. It was easy and saved a lot of time. One word, all checked bags must go through agricultural inspection (bye, bye fresh fruit) before being checked. Carry on bags go through agricultural inspection in Honolulu before flying back to the mainland.

Both of my flights were on time. However, in previous trips I have not been so lucky.

Honolulu-San Francisco

Here is where our luck ran out on this trip. We were ready and waiting at our gate, about 20 minutes until boarding would begin when it was announced that our plane and gate would be changed. Wind shield wiper of all things was broken! Take off to be delayed by 2 hours. Okay, that was a drag but it could have worse. We could have been sitting on the plane (I've had that happen!). Overall I think Hawaiian handled it pretty well. Everyone got free headsets as compensation for the delay. (I might have preferred a drink!)

The schedule for the return flight was pretty much the same (drink service followed by meal service). This time the pasta selection was actually decent (tortellini, which unfortunately my hubby doesn't like) but I still think the kids got the best deal!

They had similar flight entertainment as well on the return although the focus this time was on California (like we all cared about Sacramento!)

Once again we were seated fairly close to the lavatories and no smell.

Although we were on a 767-300 again the seats must have spaced differently because my husband and I immediately noticed that we much more leg room, so we were immensely pleased.

Conclusion

I would say that Hawaiian does offer friendlier and better service than United or American on the route we flew. Delays are a part of travel so I wasn't really annoyed by the delay going home. It was overall a pleasant experience (despite the poor boy adjacent to us who used the barf bag coming and going.) and the flight and counter attendants were friendly and efficient in Honolulu and San Francisco.

However, the inter-island service still could use some improvement. A boarding group system such as what Southwest uses would makes things a little less crazy at the gate.

As the Hawaiians say, Mahalo!

Poll

What Do You Think of Hawaiian Airlines?

It's Great! (14)
58%

It's Okay (4)
17%

It's Awful. (6)
25%

Total votes: 24