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Southwest Is Nearing Its Hawaii Service Date – Expect 15 Flights per Day!

  • Joseph Hostetler

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    Remember when Southwest said it had plans for Hawaii over a year ago?

    They’ve been playing close to the vest ever since.  Leaving us LUVheads clamoring for the smallest rosy update week after month.  We can’t WAIT to get almost 2 for 1 travel to Hawaii with best deal in travel.

    We’ve not heard any meaningful details about the new routes in a long time.  We heard Southwest would begin service last month, but that didn’t happen!

    But after their latest earnings call, we might have some real answers!

    Southwest Flip Flopped With Their Expected Service to Hawaii – But Now We Might Actually Have Some Answers!

    Adam from The Motley Fool has taken some of the data Southwest mentioned and created an intriguing theory for Southwest’s coming routes.  The data Southwest has provided this year hints service to Hawaii beginning in early 2019.  And it could operate ~15 flights per day!

    Southwest’s CEO stated that the airline expects its available seat miles to grow “no more than 5% in 2019, with about half of that growth coming on Hawaii routes.”  Here’s what Adam has to say:

    [2.5% growth in available seat miles] makes it possible to estimate how many Hawaii flights the low-fare airline plans to operate next year.

    Southwest Airlines is on track to offer approximately 160 billion available seat miles in 2018.  Thus, it plans for up to 8 billion available seat miles of capacity growth next year, with up to 4 billion available seat miles of growth targeted at the Hawaii market.  Based on a round-trip distance of about 5,000 miles and 175 seats per aircraft, that implies an average of about 12.5 daily round-trips to Hawaii during 2019.

    He reasons that because Southwest will probably not begin service to Hawaii on the first day of 2019, there will probably be a ramp up period.

    [A] more reasonable expectation might be for an average of no more than 10 flights a day during the first quarter, rising to as many as 15 flights a day by June.

    This is a neat conjecture.  I think Southwest fans will eat it up.

    But regardless of whether or not you’re a Southwest fan, we can all expect flights to Hawaii to get a lot cheaper.  Southwest’s new service to Hawaii especially impacts Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines, who do a lot of business on these upcoming Southwest routes.

    Let us know what you think about this theory!  And check out this post about the Southwest Companion Pass so you can be ready to take advantage of these flights to Hawaii when they finally launch!

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    Editorial Note: We're the Million Mile Secrets team. And we're proud of our content, opinions and analysis, and of our reader's comments. These haven’t been reviewed, approved or endorsed by any of the airlines, hotels, or credit card issuers which we often write about. And that’s just how we like it! :)