After a challenging 2020, it’s been uplifting for us at Hawaiian Airlines to start seeing tangible signs pointing to a recovery in travel – and none more exciting for us than this week’s launch of two of our four newest routes, Long Beach-Maui and Orlando-Honolulu. Our Ontario-Honolulu service begins Tuesday, followed by Austin-Honolulu service in April.

While our airline and Hawai‘i as a destination are well-positioned for a recovery, confidence, determination, and a good game plan will be essential. 

“Let’s focus on that recovery by remembering who we are and why our guests choose us and share that warmth and aloha after a brutal year of quarantines and empty airports,” Hawaiian Airlines President and CEO Peter Ingram wrote employees in a recent company memo. “Our hoʻokipa [hospitality] is a refuge for weary travelers, and it also reconnects us with each other as our business returns.”

To learn more about what the near-term future holds for our airline, including demand trends, the state of our fleet and network, we sat down to talk story with Brent Overbeek, senior vice president of network planning and revenue management at Hawaiian Airlines.

Brent Overbeek, pictured second from the left, at a recent company volunteer event at the Hawaii Foodbank.

Can you explain the reasoning behind launching our latest routes at this time? How are they performing so far? 

We know demand in some of our deeper, established markets – like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Seattle – will take some time to return to pre-pandemic levels. In this downtime, we saw an opportunity to expand our footprint on the U.S. West Coast and tap into new markets that have demonstrated a strong interest in travel to Hawaiʻi.

Before the launch of our new Orlando-Honolulu service, Orlando was the second-largest travel market to the Hawaiian Islands that lacked nonstop flights, and the second most popular destination for kamaʻāina (Hawaiʻi residents), after Las Vegas. Austin, where the population is growing in correlation with its thriving tech sector, is similar in that it is the third-largest travel market to the Hawaiian Islands without the convenience of a nonstop flight. We launch our inaugural flight to Honolulu from Orlando this Saturday and Austin-Honolulu in April – both routes becoming the first and the only nonstop option to Honolulu. Bookings are so promising that we’ve decided to expand our service to meet the growing demand during the upcoming summer travel season.

Elijah, Jesse and their mother Tammy, an A321neo first officer at Hawaiian Airlines, joined our inaugural Honolulu-Orlando flight, which departed yesterday and arrived in Orlando this morning.

In terms of expanding our U.S. West Coast pool, we have had our eyes on launching service between Long Beach and Kahului, Maui, for some time now. We have had an airport slot for a while and initially planned to launch our service before the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of our guests flying our Long Beach-Honolulu flights also connect to Maui, so it made sense to us from a business and network perspective to offer them direct access to the Valley Isle.

One thing that some folks may remember is that we are not new to Ontario. We briefly served the market in 2002 but stopped in 2004 because our wide-body aircraft size was not suitable for the demand of a mid-sized market back then. Today, our fuel-efficient Airbus A321neo, a mid-sized plane, is the perfect match for the route. 

Photo credit: Long Beach Airport

Hawaiian Airlines' guests received fresh lei and gifts while boarding the inaugural LGB-OGG flight Wednesday morning.

We are pleased with these markets' early performance, and we anticipate demand to continue to strengthen into the summer. We’ve also decided to expand our service to ONT to meet summer travel demand.

How does demand look as we approach peak periods? How does Hawaiian leverage busier travel periods to build momentum and confidence?

The improvement in demand is encouraging, but we have a long way to go. We have seen an upward trend in booking since mid-January as COVID-19 cases decline, confidence in the vaccines grow, and people feel comfortable traveling again. Right now, our focus is on ramping up our North America schedule. In February, we flew about 60 percent of our pre-pandemic levels, and as we continue to add back service, I think we will likely be in the 90-95-percent range in May. Travel within the state of Hawai‘i is also picking up as our U.S. mainland guests connect to the other Neighbor Islands.

A full recovery of our Neighbor Island network will hinge on a relaxation of testing and quarantine requirements. Given our collective progress as a community to keep infections low in Hawaiʻi, we’re confident that could happen soon.

International is a whole other ballpark as we’re working with each government’s varying travel restrictions. While we have testing partnerships in Japan and Korea, travel restrictions there and in Australia, New Zealand, American Samoa and Tahiti are forcing a much slower recovery on our business's international side.

What does recovery look like to you? 

As we worked our way through the pandemic, we complemented our research into booking data and trends with web search data and other metrics of interest in travel. We are now at a point where interest is turning into realized demand, so our traditional metrics are proving to become useful again.

How do services like our pre-travel testing network, pre-clear options, and other programs meant to streamline the travel experience help drive our recovery?

People are ready to travel for leisure, and Hawaiʻi is on their minds. Before COVID-19, making travel effortless was a critical focus area for us, seen in recent enhancements to our booking tools, mobile app and airport self-services. Today, our pre-travel testing partnerships and pre-clear options are an extension of our commitment to streamline our guests’ travel experience by helping them navigate and meet requirements to visit and enjoy Hawai‘i safely.

Talk a bit about our fleet. How have we adapted our fleet to a “new normal” of flying? What plans are there for our fleet looking ahead? 

In April 2020, we retrofitted one of our Airbus A330 to transport 1.6 million face masks from China to Honolulu.

We’ve certainly been agile in using the fleet in various ways over the past year, including introducing the Airbus A321neo into some Neighbor island flying and using the Airbus A330 for cargo-only operations, which expanded our existing charter footprint. As the travel industry, consumer confidence and the economy recover, I think we’ll transition back to how we used our fleet before the pandemic.

We’ll receive the first of our ten Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner in 2022, though we don’t anticipate bringing it into service until 2023.

Featured image credit: Long Beach Airport

As Mahina ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian Language Month) comes to a close, our ‘ohana's celebrations are far from over – and they are extending beyond our aircraft and workplace. On Saturday, members of Team Kōkua, our employee volunteer group, helped mālama the ʻāina (care for the land) at Ke Kula ʻo Samuel M. Kamakau Laboratory Public Charter School.

I ka moe ʻana aku o ko kākou Mahina ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, ʻaʻole naʻe e pau ko kākou hoʻolauleʻa ʻana i ka nani o ka ʻōlelo – a ke puka aku nei ma waho o nā palena o ko mākou kahua hana a me nā mokulele kekahi. Ma ka Pōʻaono i hala, ua huli nā lima o Team Kōkua, ko mākou hui hana kaiāulu, i lalo e mālama ʻāina ai i Ke Kula ʻo Samuel M. Kamakau Laboratory Public Charter School.

Several Team Kōkua volunteers gathered beneath the Koʻolau Mountains at Ke Kula ʻo Samuel M. Kamakau Laboratory Public Charter School.

“The language of our elders flourishes through engaging with one another, through breaking bread together and through eating traditional foods that bring energy to the body and spirit. Mahalo to Hawaiian Airlines for giving us occasion to rejuvenate the land. We say this with great aloha, joyful spirits, and thanks," said Kamehaʻililani Waiau, principal of Ke Kula ʻo Samuel M. Kamakau Laboratory Public Charter School.

“E ola a ōhāhā mai ka ʻōlelo kūpuna ma o ka launa, ka pū paʻakai, ka hoʻāʻo ma nā ʻano a pau a me ka ʻai kuʻuna e hōʻikehu ai ke kino a me ka naʻau. Mahalo e ka Hui Mokulele ʻo Hawaiian ka hoʻoulu ʻana i ko mākou ʻiʻini e hoʻi hou i ka māla e kahukahu ai i ka honua kula e ola, e ulu, e wehi. Me ke aloha Kamakau a me ka naʻau piha hauʻoli mākou e hāpai ai ko mākou leo mahalo.” – Kamehaʻililani Waiau, Ke Kula ʻo Samuel M. Kamakau Laboratory Public Charter School.

Ke Kula ʻo Samuel M. Kamakau Laboratory Public Charter School staff welcoming Team Kōkua with an oli (chant).

The 10-acre campus is nestled at the base of the humbling Koʻolau Mountain Range on Oʻahu’s Windward (eastern) side. There, hundreds of local young minds are molded through Hawaiian language and culture curricula. The immersion school is celebrated for weaving traditional and contemporary teaching to instill in children a strong cultural identity and sense of place. Students have become stewards of the language, in a sense, learning from innovative digital resources created by the school’s faculty and partners for language learning, including manomano, an online Hawaiian dictionary, and Lehulehu, a ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi puzzle app modeled after the popular game Words with Friends.

Aia ke noho hanohano maila ua kula nei i mua o ke alo o ʻIolekaʻa a me Keahiakahoe i Koʻolaupoko, Oʻahu ma luna o ka ʻāina he 10 mau ʻeka. Aia ma laila he haneli a ʻoi mau haumāna e aʻo nei ma o ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi i nā mea Hawaiʻi. ʻO ka waiwai o ia ʻōnaehana aʻo, ʻo ia hoʻi ka wili pū ʻia ʻana o nā mea o ke au nei a me ko ke au i hala i paʻa mai ai ke kahua o nā haumāna. A i mea hoʻi e hoʻokuluma ʻia ai ka ʻōlelo, ua haku ko ke kula i mau ʻenehana hou no ka poʻe haumāna a me ke kaiāulu, e laʻa me manomano, he puke wehewehe pūnaewele, a me Lehulehu, he pāʻani i ʻano like me ka pāʻani ʻo Words with Friends.

Team Kōkua helped clear overgrowth in the school's māla (garden) to make way for native plants.

"Ke Kula ʻo Samuel M. Kamakau rises above the call of duty to its students, and views it as their kuleana (responsibility) to serve the community through innovation both in and out of the classroom,” said Debbie Nakanelua-Richards, director of community and cultural relations at Hawaiian Airlines. “From creating digital Hawaiian language resources to publishing books for their students, the school’s work for ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi is only the surface of what they do. They continue to teach how others can apply native Hawaiian thinking and a sense of place for those who call Hawaiʻi home."

“Kūlia ko Ke Kula ʻo Samuel M. Kamakau i ka nuʻu no ka pono o ko lākou poʻe haumāna, a i ka manawa hoʻokahi lākou e mālama aku nei i ko lākou kuleana i ke kaiāulu ma o ka noke mau i ka haku mea hou ʻana i loko, a i waho hoʻi o ka lumi papa,” wahi a Debbie Nakanelua-Richards, kuhina o ke keʻena kaiāulu a me ke kuʻuna ma ka Hui Mokulele ʻo Hawaiian. “Mai ka haku ʻana i mau ʻenehana ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, a hiki i ka pāniki ʻana aku i nā puke no ka poʻe haumāna, ʻo ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi kekahi hakina wale nō o kā lākou hana e lawelawe nei. Oi noke mau lākou i ke aʻo aku i nā kānaka like ʻole e pili ana i ke kuanaʻike Hawaiʻi a me ke aloha ʻāina no ko kākou home.”

A Team Kōkua volunteer learning about the plants that will make up the school's māla.

Twelve Hawaiian Airlines volunteers, including two fluent ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi speakers, pulled weeds from the school’s gardens and helped plant native trees and medicinal shrubs, such as naʻu (gardenia), aʻaliʻi and ti. Throughout the day, they were also encouraged to use basic ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi phrases, like “Naʻu e hana (I will do it)" and “He aha kēia/kēla (What is this/that?)", taught in our Ke Kumu: Papa ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (The Source: Hawaiian Language Class), a free, virtual learning opportunity offered to all employees and retirees.

Ua komo he 12 mau mea hana kaiāulu (aia hoʻi 2 mau kānaka i wali ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi iā lāua) mai loko mai o ka Hui Mokulele ʻo Hawaiian i ka waele nāhelehele i nā māla o ke kula, a me ke kanu ʻana i nā lāʻau lapaʻau. ʻO ka nāʻū, ʻo ka ʻaʻaliʻi, me ka lāʻī kekahi o nā mea kanu i kanu ʻia ma laila. No ka lā holoʻokoʻa, paipai ʻia nā limahana e hoʻohana i ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi e laʻa me “Naʻu e hana” a me, “He aha kēlā?” e like ma ka mea i aʻo ʻia ma Ke Kumu: Papa ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, he papa ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi pūnaewele hoʻi i hoʻolako ʻia no nā limahana a me nā mea līkaia o ka Hui Mokulele ʻo Hawaiian.

Volunteers planted young ti plants, a symbol of good fortune in Hawaiian culture, in the heart of the school's campus.

"It was a dream come true to see Team Kōkua and Ke Kula ʻo Samuel M. Kamakau’s ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi warriors working so closely together,” said Mathew “Manakō” Tanaka, senior specialist of cultural and community relations, who attended the volunteer event and taught the recent Ke Kumu class. “To be in the presence of those who have dedicated their lives to the preservation of the language was humbling, and to see my friends participating in the cause while clearing overgrowth made me even more proud to be a part of Hawaiian Airlines.” 

“Me he kō ʻana ia o ka moemoeā i ka ʻike ʻana i ko Team Kōkua me ko Ke Kula ʻo Samuel M. Kamakau mau koa ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi e pūpūkahi ana i ka holomua,” wahi a Mathew “Manakō” Tanaka, laekahi keʻena kaiāulu a kuʻuna, he mea hana kaiāulu hoʻi nāna i aʻo i nā papa Ke Kumu. “Haʻahaʻa i ka nohona i ke alo o nā kānaka na lākou e kiaʻi nei i ko kākou ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, a i ke ʻike ʻana i nā hoa hana e komo piha ʻana i ka hana, hū aʻela ka haʻaheo no kaʻu ʻoihana ma ka Hui Mokulele ʻo Hawaiian.”

Jamie Pirkl was among several volunteers learning and encouraged to use ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi when offering to complete a job.

"I’m not a native ʻōlelo Hawai’i speaker, so it was very humbling and such an enriching experience for me to be so immersed in it,” said Jamie Pirkl, systems lead for revenue management systems and Team Kōkua volunteer. “This volunteer event has inspired me to take my learnings of ʻōlelo hawai’i further, and helped give me the courage to just ‘a’a i ka ‘ōlelo! (try speaking!) It is our responsibility as kama’āina (residents) that we at least try to learn the language and culture of where we live.”

“ʻAʻole au i mākaukau loa ma ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, no laila ua haʻahaʻa a kūpaianaha hoʻi au i ke komo piha ʻana i ka ʻōlelo,” wahi a Jamie Pirkl, he alakaʻi mālama kālā loaʻa a mea hana kaiāulu no Team Kōkua. “Ua komo ihola ka ʻiʻini i loko oʻu e hoʻonui aʻe i ke aʻo ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi ʻana ma muli o kēia hana kaiāulu ʻana, a mākaukau ihola i ka ʻaʻa wale ʻana i ka ʻōlelo! ʻO ko kākou kamaʻāina kuleana ia ʻo ka huli i ka ʻōlelo a me nā loina o ko kākou ʻāina e noho nei.”

Manaʻo readers can support Ke Kula ʻo Samuel M. Kamakau Laboratory Public Charter School’s efforts by purchasing any item from the Keola Rapozo x Hawaiian Airlines Mahina ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i Collection, available on our airline’s online logo store.

In navigating his creative brainstorms, local designer Keola Nakaʻahiki Rapozo says tapping into a Hawaiian mindset is like following a compass. For Rapozo, the co-founder of Hawaiʻi brand FITTED, thinking Hawaiian means reconnecting to a mainframe rooted in culture, language and perspective. In looking through this lens, Rapozo envisioned the word ōhāhā, the focus of his latest collaboration with our airline in celebrating Mahina ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian Language Month). 

Ōhāhā, meaning flourishing, fully developed and healthy, stemmed from Rapozo’s commitment to designing with a sense of place and perpetuating ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi – starting inside his home. A native Hawaiian raised in a predominantly blue-collar community on Oʻahu, Rapozo didn’t grow up with the language.

Rapozo pictured in our Honolulu headquarters with select items from our Mahina ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi collection.

“I was very much immersed in Hawaiian culture growing up, but back then [in the 1980s and 90s] things were different,” Rapozo said. “We weren’t encouraged to learn ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, but cultural practices, like dancing hula, farming and working with kalo (taro) were very apparent. At that time, nobody was teaching ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. For someone to speak back then, at least in my experience, was rare.” 

Years later, Rapozo marveled at the reintroduction of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi in public schools (done at the helm of the Hawaiian revitalization movement). “I thought it was brilliant that the native Hawaiian community was establishing all-Hawaiian speaking schools," he said. "I knew that if I ever had a child, I was going to commit to teaching them the language.”

Rapozo with his ʻohana holding a kalo (taro) plant pulled from their māla (garden).

Today, Rapozo and his wife have two daughters, ages 3 and 9, who attend Ke Kula Kaiapuni ʻO Ānuenue, a K-12 Hawaiian language immersion public school. But for him, language is just the start. “I want my children at some point to be able to think Hawaiian, which is a different thing than speaking Hawaiian,” he said. “If I can get my daughters to learn how to look at things through a Hawaiian lens first, I think that will be incredibly beneficial in any aspect of their lives.”

Have time to learn a new moʻolelo (story)? Keola Rapozo shared one of his favorites that inspires his work every day and highlights how one can think Hawaiian.

“Ōhāhā is a Hawaiian word that describes being full, and my interpretation of it is, ‘How do I apply ōhāhā, fullness, to my own life?’ I want to give my daughters confidence, set them up for success and use culture and language to understand the world," he said. "There’s a Hawaiian proverb that says, ‘I ka 'ōlelo nō ke ola, i ka 'ōlelo nō ka make,’ or ‘In language there’s life, and in language there’s death.’ Words are powerful, and we can choose how to use our language. For me, I’m using my language and layering it with my interpretation of ōhāhā to build kiʻi (imagery); to share moʻolelo (stories) through kiʻi; to leave this space better for my daughters and the next person.”

Photo credit: Mark Kushimi

Rapozo at his work studio in Honolulu where he conceptualizes his cultural and island-inspired designs.

This is not our first collaboration with Rapozo, who is best known for spearheading streetwear fashion of headwear and apparel inspired by Honolulu’s urban scene. In 2011, we tapped Rapozo to create Hawaiian patterns and branding during a major renovation of our corporate headquarters. In 2015, he partnered with POW! WOW! Hawaiʻi in the painting of murals that adorned our Honolulu ground service vehicles.

“This [Hawaiian's corporate headquarters] is a very endearing place for me,” Rapozo shared. “Working on the initial project with Hawaiian Airlines opened up a beautiful, long-lasting relationship between our companies. It’s been fruitful for me and for FITTED, which opened up our portfolio of client work. I’ve learned a lot through this partnership. I’ve been fortunate to consult on Hawaiian’s uniform projects, cabin designs, service truck projects, branding, etc., and always felt that Hawaiian valued my perspective.”

The Keola Rapozo x Hawaiian Airlines Mahina ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i Collection is available at our airline’s online logo store. Proceeds from the collection will go to Ke Kula ʻo Samuel M. Kamakau Laboratory Public Charter School, a language immersion school on Oʻahu’s windward (eastern) side that teaches and shares ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi through traditional and contemporary methods. Sales will also benefit the school's innovation projects, including manomano, an online Hawaiian dictionary, and the creation of Lehulehu, a ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi puzzle app modeled after the popular game Words with Friends.

Thumbnail photo credit: Mark Kushimi