Hawaiian Airlines

Honolulu-Hilo-Honolulu on the same day. Low price flights on time good Boeing 717. Soft drink served on 40mins flight.

I think this is one of the few airlines that still serves meals at no charge when flying from the mainland. Flight attendants were accomodating and helpful. No problems at all with check in flight left on time and we were as comfortable as one can be in economy class for a long flight.

LAX-HNL-KOA return First Class. LAX Premier Club Lounge very small and basic with limited food and drink options. Transpacific flights on new A330 but old style reclining seats with a footrests a big let-down. IFE screen and choices very good. Catering quite tasty for domestic first class though quality was much higher out of LAX than HNL. Flight attendants professional and attentive. Inter-island first class is not value unless you're on a through fare. HNL airport is in serious need of a make-over - old poorly run counter-intuitive muted staff and barebones lounges. For a US carrier HA is not a bad operation but not all that special in any way either.

LAX-HNL roundtrip First class on new A330. Good seat and legroom though expected more recline for newer plane that they plan to use for future international routes. Service was great! Meal was good (get to pick 3 of 5 choices on menu). IFE great enjoyed the selection of movies and programming. Flew coach back on new A330 and pretty impressed - more legroom and slightly better recline than older Hawaiian 767s. Have to pay for movies/videos on IFE in coach though. One of the few domestic airlines that still serve complimentary meals in coach.

Las Vegas to Honolulu good on time flight coach seating adequate best seats for legroom are 26AC or 26HJ on Boeing 767 aircraft. First Class seating looked good but not worth paying anything over $250 for upgrades on US Mainland to Hawaii flights would obviously be happy to pay more for longer distance flights. Good choice of meal you can have a free meal or choose to pay for an upgraded meal which I did and was a good move free coffees and soft drinks. Very friendly and smiling cabin crew great start to Hawaiian trip.

Sydney to Honolulu flight was most uncomfortable seating. Temperature in the cabin was extremely warm and unbearable. On our return flight a more comfortable trip seating wise but the cabin was extremely cold throughout the 10 hour flight. Even the thin blankets supplied did not do us any good. Everyone was dragging out extra jackets to put on. The aircraft also left from the domestic terminal and we were unable to take advantage of buying duty free there because no one told us prior that once we booked in we couldn't get to the International Terminal to purchase goods. All international flights should leave from the International Terminal.

Honolulu to Las Vegas. Very helpful guy at Honolulu airport got us through the boarding process fast this seemed to set the standard on our flight everything went well. I have flown on a number of American airlines any this flight was as good as I have had to date. The food is typical USA airline style but far from the worst I have had. Only one complaint this was the coldest flight I have ever been on in over 35 years of flying it is the first time I have ever found it necessary to wrap myself in an airline blanket 90% of the passengers were similarly wrapped in blankets. My wife asked why the plane was so cold but none of the crew seemed to know.

SFO-HNL-KOA and back. Hawaiian advertises their outstanding service and free meals and beverages. They kept changing our flights and departure times I had to call them and rebook us on a flight that would not arrive 8 hours later than the flight I paid for. At the airport (SFO) there was no gate information we had to ask our way through to find out which the departure gate is. When we started boarding there was still no gate information. The staff seemed to be very unmotivated they had different groups for boarding but no one actually enforced that. By the time we got to our seats almost everyone in front of us was already there and all luggage bins were full. Hidden charges: You have to pay extra for each piece of luggage you want to check in. On the way to KOA no one cared about our carry-on luggage. BUT on the way back they were inspecting every single piece of luggage checking the measurements and the weight. If it was larger or heavier than the allowed size/weight for carry-on items you had to check it in (and pay of course). The meals nothing special I probably would have been better off with home made sandwiches. It was not worth the higher price we paid. On the plane the service was okay I wouldn't call it outstanding you get the same service as on almost any other airline. On the ground the service was very bad - staff very unhelpful and unfriendly. Hawaiian's "service" doesn't make up for the higher air fare that you are paying. flying with United or Alaska Airlines when you fly to Hawaii. The have direct flights to certain islands this way you don't waste your time in Honolulu waiting for a connecting flight.

MNL-SEA and LAS-MNL. Overall a disappointing experience and we won't make the mistake of booking it again. It was really like taking a domestic US flight across the Pacific when there are so many options on international airlines. The service amenities and aircraft are not comparable. Manila check-in was ok but they had problems with non-working printers and were unable to print all of our boarding passes (they told us to just pick up the last one in HNL because they couldn't figure it out). We boarded the 20+ year-old 767 with overhead bins sized from the 80's no IFE and ageing cabin. The flight attendants all appeared to be senior and had a lot of attitude. We overheard one flight attendant insult an elderly passenger behind her back because the passenger requested to change her new blanket which had hairs on it. The mocking and poor attitude of flight attendants which other reviewers below referred to was true on our flight. To watch movies they rented personal DVD players for $15 per segment. With a change of plane in HNL that meant 4 segments round-trip or $60 per person to watch movies. When we inquired if there was a seafood option (the only choices were chicken and pork) the flight attendant replied they used to have special meals but no longer offer them. On the return flight from LAS we stopped over in HNL for a night but were charged baggage fees for that segment because it was technically a domestic flight - $25 per bag. Finally we took off from HNL-MNL and weren't in the air for 30 minutes when the captain announced a faulty generator requiring us to return to HNL (again a 20+ year-old 767). However we had to burn fuel first so we flew in circles at 7000 ft for 4 hours with the landing gear and flaps fully extended - an uncomfortable ride. The flight attendants were plain combative with understandably worried and upset passengers. Six hours later we landed in HNL again. They arranged another plane with a new crew and we arrived in MNL 8 hours late. To make matters worse they left behind baggage of at least 50 passengers in HNL so there was an ugly queue of irate passengers at 2:30 am after an 8 hour delay. We received our luggage two days later. We wrote a letter to Hawaiian but they did not respond. All in all if we had flown on CX or KE or OZ via HKG or SEL to the mainland we could've avoided a tremendous amount of hassle (eg. having to collect your bags and check-in again in HNL) being nickel and dimed (eg. luggage fees and DVD rental fees) poor service (being insulted by flight attendant) and delays from old faulty aircraft. I should also mention I felt bad for the business class passengers who paid $2000+ for their seats. The seats in business class are domestic US first class seats - very little recline and leg room. You have many choices and until Hawaiian actually starts caring about their transpacific passengers we are not flying them again.

First Class LAX to HNL-LIH. First class was mediocre. The first class cabin was quite crowded seats weren't that large. Nothing was electric on the seat an older manual style. The entertainment consisted of small video units passed out to each passenger -entertainment choice was terrible. The food was ok drinks were fine. The staff was exceptionally nice and the cabin was clean. It was all quite mundane and functional.