Hawaiian Airlines: cost creep casts a slight shadow over a favourable PRASM performance

Hawaiian Airlines' geography has been a boon for the airline throughout 2016 as the company's unit revenue performance has outpaced that of its peers. Hawaiian has benefitted from immunity to the lack of pricing traction in many domestic markets on the US mainland, and rational capacity deployment on is largest North American routes.

The company expects to continue posting a unit revenue outperformance for the remainder of 2016, driven by still favourable capacity trends in its markets. Hawaiian's own capacity growth is expected to fall between 3% and 4% for 2016, and remain in the low- to mid- single-digit range for the foreseeable future.

Although Hawaiian continues to outperform the industry in unit revenue, the company is facing inflated unit costs in 2016 driven by several factors, including increased compensation and technology investments. The airline is also in the middle of pilot negotiations, and has acknowledged additional cost headwinds once a new collective bargaining agreement is reached.