A couple of days ago Southwest Airlines generated a lot of buzz when they started selling flights to Hawaii. The airline published fares of just $49 one-way, including two checked bags, which is an incredibly good deal.
Continue reading: How To Book Southwest Airlines Hawaii Flights (Even When The Website Says You Can’t)
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
The RES system was a problem preventing red-eyes, but that is resolved. The pilot contract has rates for red-eyes that Southwest considers unreasonable, but they *can* fly red-eyes per the contract. There is, however, another technical issue. The Ops software that does weight and balance, tracks the fleet, and ties into many other systems like maintenance tracking does not support red-eyes. There has to be a "hard stop" of all scheduled flights at some point each night for the software to cycle to the new day. Right now it is set to something like 4am Eastern. The technology roadmap has that system being replaced, but it has been deferred a couple of times.
I scheduled a flight from ABQ to OGG yesterday. No flight was available direct with connections. I could find the route myself and tried to book it as a mult-city itinerary. Wouldn't work, got the error on the website. Called in and they had the same error. I had to book two separate one way tickets to make the flight work. No overnight stays, just a stupid computer error.
The real workaround is to buy the $49 Hawaii segments and then book your mainland connections on another airline.
I believe historically WN reservation/scheduling system couldn't handle the date change. Additionally, they only had 2 schedules. Sunday through Friday and Saturday. With the new system they have reduced unnecessary mid-week frequencies. The new system can also handle seat assignments and other fees. We'll see how it shakes out.
I did exactly this to book an “overnight connection” in OAK from HOU, and in my experience they priced similar to the HOU-OGG itineraries that were available with the daytime connections.
One potential issue with booking separate legs (say) HNL-OAK and OAK-MDW is the possibility of misconnecting if the first leg is delayed. While I *assume* Southwest would protect the passenger, you would definitely *not* be protected if you were to book the second leg on another airline.
@Mitch - the trouble of course is that outside of WN there's very little frequency from other carriers at OAK, especially beyond the western US. SJC is marginally better with more transcon flights, esp. AS and AA. And while it will be more doable at LAX and SAN when those start, you'd also have to switch terminals.
Southwest is shooting themselves in the foot for making it so hard for the east coast customers to fly to Hawaii.
This has always been an issue with Southwest, and hasn't been solved. They don't allow double connections even if the flight times work, and flights to the Caribbean and Central America leave too early to connect from cities in the West.
C'est la vie. I can't fly from OAK to Costa Rica, but I can to Hawaii. And the flights are filling up anyway even without easy connections back east.
@Andy- The WN site does offer multi-city now, you just have to click “advanced search” before it displays.
The vast majority of Hawaii travelers live on the west coast, and that is the initial target market for Southwest. As Hawaii ramps up, I think you’ll see schedule adjustments and maybe even red eyes too.
Thanks for this workaround Lucky...exactly what I needed to get my trip planned.
I have reward points but I tried to book from Honolulu Hawaii leave Feb 14 2022 for senior and adult for southwest Hawaii to Hartford ct. but the website southwest do not make sense. Can you help me