Hawaiian pushes forward with international diversification strategy

Hawaiian Airlines believes its expansion into Asia during the last 18 months is starting to bear fruit, with revenue share from those flights growing as the flights begin to mature. The carrier can now begin charting normal trends on its new routes after launching flights to Tokyo Haneda and Osaka as Japan was attempting to recover from the tsunami and earthquakes that struck the country in Mar-2011.

The carrier encountered unfortunate timing with the Nov-2010 launch of flights to Haneda and the Jul-2011 introduction of flights to Osaka, with the earthquake and tsunami impacting launch performance. Hawaiian also inaugurated new service from Honolulu to Seoul in Jan-2011. Despite the challenging circumstances, data from the US Department of Transportation (DoT) show Hawaiian in 2011 recorded a nearly 79% load factor on flights originating from Haneda, 74% loads on flights from Osaka and 72% load factors on new service from Seoul to Honolulu. Those numbers are skewed somewhat by the fact that Hawaiian launched flights to Haneda and Osaka with 264-seat Boeing 767-300ERs and then transitioned to larger-gauge 294-seat A330-200 aircraft. Hawaiian still operates 767s on its flights from Honolulu to Seoul, which could indicate the carrier is still building up its passenger base before opting for the larger A330s.