Hawaiian Airlines Unveils New A330 Business Class Suites, Premium Economy

Alaska Airlines has today made a slew of passenger experience announcements, which I’m covering across several posts. The theme is simple, and it includes focusing on the premium experience (as is the standard in the industry nowadays).

In this post, I’d like to cover how Alaska Air Group has just announced the upgrades that we can expect to Hawaiian Airlines’ Airbus A330 fleet. The planes will be getting all-new interiors, including new business class suites, a premium economy cabin, and more. Separately, I’ve covered details about the new premium economy cabin, Alaska’s new premium 737 MAX 10s, the new Hawaiian Lounge Honolulu, and the new Alaska Aurora Lounge Seattle.

Hawaiian Airlines A330s getting full cabin refresh

Hawaiian Airlines’ fleet of Airbus A330s are expected to get major cabin upgrades. The airline has 24 of these A330-200s, and they’re an average of around 13 years old. The plan is for the planes to get a tip-to-tail makeover, though work will only begin in 2028:

• The current 2-2-2 fully flat business class seats will be replaced by business class suites (the airline often markets this as first class rather than business class, given that these planes largely fly domestically, but that also causes some confusion)
• The A330s will be getting a premium economy cabin, which they don’t currently have
• The A330s will be getting big tech upgrades, including new high definition seat back monitors, and bluetooth audio, complementing the Starlink Wi-Fi that these planes already have
• The A330s will be getting new seats in economy, as well as new carpets and lighting

So, what exactly should we expect? We’ll see the forward cabin increase in size from 18 seats to 22 seats, and it’ll be in a 1-2-1 layout, with six rows of seats. The airline will brand the new business class product as the Leihōkū Suites (meanwhile Alaska is branding its business class product as the Aurora Suites). All seats will feature direct aisle access with privacy doors, 19″ 4K entertainment screens, bluetooth connectivity, USB-C and AC charging, and more.

It looks to me like this is the Collins Aerospace Elevation product, which is really just an update on the Collins Aerospace Super Diamond product — Malaysia Airlines was technically the launch customer for this, on its new A330neos.

On top of that, Hawaiian’s A330s will be getting a premium economy cabin, which will be branded as Premium Reserve. It’ll feature 28 seats, spread across four rows, in a 2-3-2 layout.

The expectation is that the overall cabin will go from having around 30% premium seating to having around 40% premium seating, so that’s quite the upgrade.

Suffice it to say that these cabins look like a huge upgrade over Hawaiian’s old A330 cabins, where premium seats are in pairs, and don’t even have built-in seat back entertainment. Admittedly Hawaii is largely a leisure market, so the pairs of seats may be more appealing to some passengers.

I’m curious how the Hawaiian A330 strategy evolves

With Alaska Air Group having recently acquired Hawaiian Airlines, we’re seeing just about everything change. This has included Hawaiian’s Boeing 787 fleet being brought to Seattle, to now operate under Alaska branding.

What we do know is that the Airbus A330s will continue to operate with Hawaiian branding. However, one can’t help but wonder what the long term plan is for this fleet.

Currently, Hawaiian’s A330s are used for a combination of mainland flights, along with flights to Asia and the South Pacific. Updated interiors aren’t really needed to compete between Hawaii and the mainland, though it’ll certainly make the airline more competitive in international markets where it competes with other airlines.

Still, is there a bigger strategy to integrating Hawaiian’s geography into the overall Alaska Air Group network, and making Hawaiian’s network more profitable? Seattle has great geography for flying across the northern part of the Pacific, while Honolulu has great geography for flying across the southern part of the Pacific.

However, we have increasingly seen Alaska Air Group axe Hawaiian’s long haul routes, including those where the South Pacific geography is in theory favorable. We have to be honest, Hawaiian was losing money for a reason, so it’s understandable that we’re seeing Alaska Air Group make some changes.

Bottom line

Alaska Air Group plans to reconfigure the cabins of all Hawaiian Airbus A330s as of 2028. The planes will get updates across cabins, including new business class suites, the introduction of premium economy, and high definition seat back entertainment with bluetooth audio throughout the plane.

These updates are most definitely needed, and the products look about as good as we could’ve expected. However, the long term strategy with these planes remains to be seen, as Alaska Air Group increasingly shifts long haul flying from Honolulu to Seattle.

What do you make of these plans for Hawaiian’s A330s?