Hawaiian Airlines endures short-term pain to secure, it hopes, successful longevity

Hawaiian Airlines faces a challenging time during 1H2013 as its efforts to diversify outside of the Hawaii-US west coast market during the last few years need more time to bear fruit. Its ambitious long-haul expansion is accompanied by the introduction of a new inter-island subsidiary and the reworking of other portions of its inter-island network.

All of the changes Hawaiian is undertaking or planning to introduce are intended to bolster efforts to preserve its profitability, which has been fairly consistent during the last few years. But in the near future the carrier is facing pressure as its new long-haul Asian markets spool up and increases in competitive capacity create pressure in its trans-Pacific service to the continental US.

While the strategy Hawaiian is adopting to persevere in the long-term is solid, the airline might be attempting to accomplish too much too fast, which in the shorter-term is creating pressure on yields and unit revenues.