From reddit and southwest.com comes great news!
Southwest announces breaking news that they will begin service to Hawaii from the mainland. Details are sparse, but this is welcome news. Also, pair this with the previous promotion on easy Companion Pass!
Details
Tickets will be sold in 2018, with more details to come. Based on government approvals, we can expect flights starting from the west coast in 2019, or late 2018. For those with companion pass, especially continuing through 2018 and 2019, this will be a great deal. However, the press release has little to no specifics, so we should wait to hear more. We don’t know when they’re selling tickets or for which routes, but those should come out later in 2018.
From Southwest:
I just shared with our Employees at our Spirit Party at Universal Studios: we’re going to Hawaii, baby! That’s right—the day is finally here that we can say we’re going to add some Aloha to our world-famous Hospitality, as Southwest Airlines will soon serve the Hawaiian Islands!
We intend to begin selling tickets in 2018, and while we’re not quite ready to offer our Customers specific schedule or market information, tonight’s announcement is going to be big news within the industry. Those Southwest shockwaves of our terrific value and bar-setting Customer Service will be a game-changing addition in the U.S. transpacific market
You may have heard us purposefully changing our language ahead of tonight’s announcement to say it’s a matter of when, and not if we serve Hawaii.
Why now?
We need to take our Extended Operations (ETOPS) work to the next level and gain FAA certification of ETOPS-equipped aircraft in our fleet and establish required operational processes to offer our Customers nonstop service they expect from California to one of the world’s top leisure destinations. The MAX will be our Hawaii aircraft but, we’ll start with our ETOPS-equipped -800 fleet to accelerate our service launch date. The rest of the work is lined up to bring the performance enhancements of the MAX to what we intend to build into a multi-market offering among our west coast cities and the Hawaiian Islands.
Because this will be big news for the media and our Investors who have also waited for this day, we’ve also posted video of the Employee announcement on swamedia.com, where you’ll also be able to read our news release.
Mahalo to you all as we work to bring America’s Most Loved airline to the shores of Hawaii–and I find it fitting that’s about as far Southwest as you can go in the U.S!
Conclusion
I can’t wait – am very excited, and hope to see some competition for Hawaii in the next few years. Competition is better for consumers, so we should feel great about that. Let me know what you think about this business change in the comments!
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