Hawaiian Airlines: favourable revenue trends, but aircraft delivery delays add cost pressure

Hawaiian Airlines is maintaining a positive outlook for 2017, despite cost pressure and delays in delivery of the first Airbus A321neo aircraft to join the company's fleet. The airline is a huge proponent of the new generation narrowbody, touting the jet as the only aircraft that serves its mission of serving secondary North American markets at the right cost point. Because of the delays Hawaiian faces the undesirable situation of incurring the costs of adding the A321s to its fleet without enjoying any revenue benefit from their operation.

The delays may intensify the cost pressure Hawaiian already faces in 2017, and its current guidance does not include any effects from a potential collective bargaining agreement it could reach with its pilots. Hawaiian is not alone in facing cost pressure in 2017; nearly every US airline is bracing for non fuel unit cost challenges alongside rising oil prices.

But the unit revenue momentum Hawaiian enjoyed throughout most of 2016 is continuing into early 2017 as industry capacity to Hawaii remains rational, and its own growth is largely driven by new long haul routes introduced in late 2016. But it will be tough for Hawaiian, and the industry in general, to sustain a revenue performance that offsets the cost pressure that most US airlines, Hawaiian included, face in 2017.