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Southwest Airlines Finally Gets FAA Approval to Fly to Hawaii
Southwest Airlines is finally on its way to Hawaii. The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday approved the low-cost carrier to fly to the islands from the West Coast, Southwest said. The airline, which will service Hawaii from several cities in California, will announce when it will start selling tickets to the popular vacation destination in the coming days, it said in a statement. (www.cnbc.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
I am curious: Why did SWA need to undergo testing to gain this approval? Alaska already serves Hawaii from the mainland with 737s. Why is this different?
Each airline needs to prove their training, maintenance, and procedures are up to snuff. No two ETOPS certificates are the same. Just like no two 737 operators have the same checklists. For instance, Alaska used to run the APU the entire 6 hours, while Delta is able to turn it off. Delta invested in better APU reliability allowing them to save fuel. Both ways work, depends on the airline to decide how they want to tackle all the complications of ETOPS.
Without an assigned seat and UNITED, AA, ALASKA, DELTA, HAWAIIAN in the mix, forget it.
The most significant part of this article, to me, is "The airline also intends to offer service between the islands."
This is HUGE. I lived in Hawaii for several years flying the P-3. Hawaii's interisland transportation culture is so entrenched that outside companies have an enormous hurdle getting past the, shall we say, legislative persuasion that companies like HAL, Young Brothers Shipping and Matson have. Google "Hawaii Superferry". This was a company with 2 massive catamarans with Roll on Roll Off capabilities for cars. They were hugely successful and wildly popular at first...then the old school Hawaii Mafia made sure they went out of business. Suddenly they were required to completed multiple, burdensome and expensive Environmental Impact Surveys....even though they already did.
Suddenly surfers were concerned about whales and marine life...so they were paid to paddle out into the harbor in Maui and Honolulu to prevent the Superferry ships from docking. It's an embarrassment to the state of Hawaii that there is no ferry boat system between the island. It's the only populated group of islands in the world were there is no regular RORO/ferry system between its cities.
Watch what happens when SW pursues inter island flying...the entrenched companies are going to pull every trick in the book to prevent that. One of the busiest air routes in the world is Honolulu/Maui. BUT...if anyone can make it happen, it's SW. Enter new markets, disrupt them and grow is their MO. Good luck to them!
This is HUGE. I lived in Hawaii for several years flying the P-3. Hawaii's interisland transportation culture is so entrenched that outside companies have an enormous hurdle getting past the, shall we say, legislative persuasion that companies like HAL, Young Brothers Shipping and Matson have. Google "Hawaii Superferry". This was a company with 2 massive catamarans with Roll on Roll Off capabilities for cars. They were hugely successful and wildly popular at first...then the old school Hawaii Mafia made sure they went out of business. Suddenly they were required to completed multiple, burdensome and expensive Environmental Impact Surveys....even though they already did.
Suddenly surfers were concerned about whales and marine life...so they were paid to paddle out into the harbor in Maui and Honolulu to prevent the Superferry ships from docking. It's an embarrassment to the state of Hawaii that there is no ferry boat system between the island. It's the only populated group of islands in the world were there is no regular RORO/ferry system between its cities.
Watch what happens when SW pursues inter island flying...the entrenched companies are going to pull every trick in the book to prevent that. One of the busiest air routes in the world is Honolulu/Maui. BUT...if anyone can make it happen, it's SW. Enter new markets, disrupt them and grow is their MO. Good luck to them!
The line of political and business corruption is long, wide and very deep; at least is was in the early 1970's!
David
David
this will be interesting as well "The airline also intends to offer service between the islands"
So are they going to use 737s for that too? IIRC, they standardized on the 737 several years ago, leasing out their remaining 717s to Delta or some other carrier.
Hawaiian uses 717's which seem optimal for inter-island travel. Seems to me using 737s would reduce the number of flights, which would yield convenience to Hawaiian.
Yes. 738s, 737 Max7s, and 737 Max8s. Seeing that AAH ran B737-700s from SJC, BUR, SNA, and LAS-PHNL, it is more than capable of making the run.