Network Planning and Revenue Management is arguably one of the most complex areas of the airline business. At Hawaiian, it is where we make crucial decisions ranging from where we deploy our fleet to how we arrange our seats and the services we offer our guests to maximize value to travelers and keep us growing. So, what happens when a global pandemic forces the airline industry to almost shut down with nearly no markets to serve or seats to sell?

Bob Westgate, Hawaiianʻs managing director of network and schedule planning, explains how his 16 team members have had to quickly adapt to these exceptional industry changes.

Bob Westgate currently manages his 16 team members from his home office.

Network Planning

Our Network Planning team has been actively monitoring industry developments since traditional, weekly updates are quickly out-of-date in the very fast-paced and fluid pandemic environment. The team has been analyzing how past economic events, including 9/11 and the last financial crisis, impacted Hawaiʻiʻs visitor numbers. They are reviewing the relationship between unemployment rates and Hawaiʻi visitor levels to see if any parallels to our current situation can be discerned. The group continues to monitor currency exchange rates and the status of various international travel restrictions to determine when we will be able to resume services to many of our international markets.

Lastly, we have been assisting our cargo team in determining the costs associated with all freight operations. Since mid-April, we have been operating regular all-cargo Airbus A330 flights between Honolulu and Incheon, South Korea, and Narita in Japan and Los Angeles, along with one-off flights from Shenzhen, China, to Honolulu and Taipei to San Francisco. We have several more flights planned from Hong Kong and Taipei and others under consideration.

Our Network Planning and Cargo teams worked together to ship 1.6 million masks from Shenzhen, China to Honolulu in April.

Future Schedules

Members of our Future Schedules team have been working through a significant number of ramp-up scenarios to help us plan our future. These exercises have led to very detailed schedule modeling so we can determine the resources we may need under different situations. The team recently took the lead in determining what it would take for us to operate one-stop flights in the event they became necessary to be CARES Act compliant. An example of a one-stop flight would be Honolulu-New York-Boston, using one flight to serve two East Coast stations in our network. This option, which falls outside our existing model as a destination carrier, in which every one of our flights begins or ends in Hawaiʻi, was not deemed necessary.  

This team is also responsible for monitoring block times – the amount of time a flight takes, from pushing back from the departure gate to arriving at the destination gate. Accurate block times help with flight planning and ensure we don’t arrive too early when a gate may not be available. Our block times analyst has been studying the impact of significantly less industry activity at our airports and in the sky. This effort has led to modest one-to-two-minute block reductions for our Honolulu and neighbor island flights, and up to 10 minutes for our flights to and from the U.S. mainland.

Alex Bachwich, manager of future schedules, is working around the clock in his home office to stay on top of the fast-paced industry changes.

Current Schedules

The Current Schedules team has been producing multiple scenarios before finalizing each month’s schedule. This preparation has been challenging because we need to rely on various governments for key dates, including when local, state and country quarantines are scheduled to be lifted. This team is also responsible, along with Revenue Management, for determining when neighbor island up gauges or extra flights are deemed necessary to accommodate in-flight social distancing, particularly on peak travel days. As an example, we have occasionally been operating our midsize Airbus A321neo aircraft in place of our smaller Boeing B717s on select Maui-Honolulu routes where we’ve seen higher bookings. This allows us to meet demand while capping our loads to allow for distancing onboard.

We have also increased our charter planning now that we have more available aircraft to pursue charter opportunities, which help offset some of the lost revenue on our reduced commercial schedule. Slot coordination, an often-complicated process to maximize the efficient use of airport infrastructure, continues to take up a lot of time, especially for ad hoc charters and cargo-only operations, and because we are making decisions relatively late in the slot coordination process.

Our Current Schedules team is also responsible, along with Revenue Management, for determining when neighbor island up gauges or extra flights are deemed necessary to accommodate in-flight social distancing, particularly on peak travel days.

Publications

Each time we add, cancel or retime our flights, we run a schedule change that is reflected on HawaiianAirlines.com, the Sabre reservation system and the global distribution systems. Prior to the pandemic, our Publications team would process one or two schedule changes per week. This has evolved into one or two changes per day as rapidly changing conditions force us to make relatively close-in decisions about our capacity. They have also been tasked with implementing the new seat maps with middle seat blocks to provide more personal space for our guests.

Additionally, codeshare coordination has become increasingly challenging as all airlines are scrambling to identify close-in schedules that offer passengers a seamless connection and, when necessary, reaccommodation options. We typically have 10 days to work with our codeshare partners but the urgency to make last-minute schedule changes has forced us to coordinate with partners in near real-time. This is especially important for our codeshare partners that rely on our neighbor island network since most nonstop flights between the U.S. mainland and neighbor island points have been cancelled due to decreased demand caused by the ongoing pandemic. 

At the end of the day, my team is doing their best to break down complicated information and communicate it as effectively as possible, and I’d like to mahalo all the teams we have been working closely with, especially airport operations, crew, maintenance planning, our System Operations Control Center and catering. This close and speedy coordination has made it easier for us to do our jobs and continue to serve our guests in these tumultuous times.

Tina Larson, managing director – sales analytics, distribution and planning

On March 10, a day before the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 virus outbreak a pandemic, my role at Hawaiian completely changed.

At that point, a few groups had been leading our early COVID-19 response by monitoring updates and guidance from public health agencies, while consulting with industry partners and state, federal and international government officials.

As the severity of the pandemic rapidly increased, there was an urgent need to create a team dedicated to coordinating numerous efforts suddenly occurring throughout the company, and I was asked to lead a group of seven people representing various departments – Finance, Information Technology, Human Resources and Tech Ops – that became known as the Corporate COVID Coordination Team (CCCT). Coordinating COVID-19-related projects became our sole priority as Hawaiian navigated an unprecedented crisis in our industry. In other words, this was my new job.
 

Tina's role at Hawaiian quickly changed from sales leader to crisis coordinator once the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

Given the uncertainty of the pandemic, I advised my Distribution, Sales Analytics & Planning teams that I would be sequestered in a conference room for the foreseeable future and to holler if they needed me, thinking this would just be a two-week project. I had been conducting a post-event analysis of our annual Global Sales Conference while finalizing a new distribution technology contract. My team was working on updating various sales and distribution reports, and everyone was excited for the roll out of new technology supporting our sales division operations. Within a blink of an eye, I was forced to drop all that work and found myself orchestrating and communication myriad efforts springing up across the company.

At this point, we had suspended our South Korea route, something unimaginable just a few short weeks ago. By the end of my first week as the CCCT lead, we received news that New Zealand would be closing its borders, with Australia following shortly after. We had to quickly figure out how to coordinate and communicate that we were suspending our Auckland, Brisbane and Sydney routes. Realizing we had a lot of people who needed to receive accurate information quickly, we created a “stakeholder distribution list,” which grew from 15 to more than 80 employees within a day.

Members of the CCCT conducting daily briefings from the temporary emergency response room at corporate headquarters.

The situation was incredibly fast paced and fluid, so we began holding daily CCCT briefings to keep departments informed on the latest news and company efforts. We began coordinating urgent IT projects, such as our pop-up reservations center launched to support a surge in guests whose travel plans were being disrupted; organized a resource staffing initiative to reassign employees to departments requiring extra support; and oversaw the reduction of our flight operations to a barebones schedule that is largely still in place today as a result of the state of Hawaii's mandatory 14-day quarantine for travelers arriving to the islands. For updates on the state's travel requirements, including a new pre-travel testing program scheduled to launch Aug. 1, please click here.

Other ongoing CCCT activities include:

• Collaborating with the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to address a range of issues tied to business agility, commercial initiatives, marketing/communications, among others.
• Partnering with departments to develop new ad hoc processes (i.e. schedule change, cancelation and re-accommodation notifications) in response to our changing business needs.
• Providing executive briefing support and serving as the primary information source for leadership.

Once Hawai'i issued a work-from-home mandate, Tina led the CCCT from her home office.

We also shared workforce concerns to our executives so they could proactively address questions and support departments. In early May, with the state successfully flattening its infection curve and announcing a phased reopening of Hawai'i, we pivoted and helped coordinate efforts focused on recovery initiatives, including a phased reopening of our corporate offices with new health protocols, and determining what our “new normal” operating model looks like – a situation that continues to evolve today.

The Corporate COVID-19 Coordination Team, top row, from left: Josh Forloine, Al Harjati, Tina Larson, Mel LeFever and Diane Crouch. Bottom row: Roger Morikawa, Justin White and Philip Giusto.

The CCCT came together quickly and is comprised of many talented employees with differing expertise and skills. We didn’t know each other prior to this endeavor but quickly became a close-knit ‘ohana. I must credit Jim Landers, our senior vice president for technical operations and CCCT executive sponsor, for compiling a team of action-oriented individuals who work extremely well together. No matter what it is that comes our way, we figure it out and get it done. I am also thankful for my dedicated Distribution, Sales Analytics & Planning team members who have pushed existing initiatives forward and identified new projects during this crisis, even as I spend most of my time away from them. It’s been an absolute privilege to be a part of both teams during this crisis and I truly am “Pualani Proud.” 

Leaders throughout our airline have one task in common: keeping their departments focused as roles adapt to changes that have stemmed from the pandemic. 

For some of our employees, day-to-day responsibilities have temporarily changed to help the company, while others remain focused on maintaining our airline’s commitment to safety and reliability.

For example, our System Operations Control Center (SOCC) continues to manage our reduced route network while assisting other work areas, and our Human Resources (HR) Employee Service Center remains busy answering questions from thousands of employees. We talked story with two SOCC and HR leaders whose teams have stepped up to help and adjusted as needed for the future of Hawaiian Airlines.

From People…

Asiana Ponciano, manager of the HR Employee Service Center

The Hawaiian Airlines’ HR Employee Service Center (ESC) usually is a bustling touchpoint for employees, retirees, on-boarding new hires, and anyone needing HR support. We also facilitate pre-employment orientations for every workgroup, from flight attendants and pilots to guest service agents and mechanics.

COVID-19 presented our department, much like others in the company, with a series of challenges we’ve never faced.

Asiana Ponciano in front of the Employee Service Center, commonly known as the HR Help Desk, at our Honolulu headquarters.

Over the past two months, we have been answering our employee phone line and responding to emails while keeping healthy at home. Pre-COVID-19, the ESC team was handling an average of 520 employee appointments, drop-ins, emails, and phone calls per week; now, we’re managing about 300 per week. With lower-than-usual drop-ins and office meetings, we've used the downtime to digest and share new company information related to COVID-19, including updated policies and procedures, voluntary furlough options for different workgroups, unemployment insurance, and ongoing changes to internal programs and services like recurrent training and our employee shuttle.

In April, the company decided to offer employees opportunities to help reduce company costs via voluntary furlough. Various sub-departments throughout HR, like mine, had to coordinate the program rollout, compiling letters of agreement for contract employees, such as our airport operations team, and drafting communications for non-contract employees, most of whom work at our headquarters. Two weeks after we launched the initiative, the ESC experienced a massive influx of employees filing for unemployment insurance, and we had escalated over 100 calls to navigate employees through the process.  

We later expanded our services in May to manage benefits-related calls that were previously handled by a third-party company to save costs during this critical period. We also began promoting complimentary health and wellness workshops and resources (provided by our vendors), including fitness, financial planning, and mental well-being.

HR ESC Specialist Crystal Ishikawa helps an employee fill out a form at the HR Help Desk.

Staying organized and timely with communications was (and still is) critical to my team’s success in handling an evolving situation.

While trust and transparency have been necessary, having fun kept us close and strengthened our team. Our HR operations team hosts weekly virtual socials on our video conferencing platform, and each week a different group facilitates a game. Team bonding moments have made a significant difference in boosting morale during one of the most challenging times in our company and have made us stronger as a unit.  

As we enter a phased reopening of our headquarters and our regular operations, I can’t help but reflect on the lessons I’ve learned about my team as a unit and myself as a leader, including: 

• A team can pivot and work remotely without sacrificing output if we establish transparency and employees feel supported.
• Playing a game is just as important as doing a status check.
• Delivering timely and accurate information over the phone and email is essential, but being available to support employees is indispensable.

…To Planes

David Rouse, managing director of the System Operations Control Center 

Continuity and adaptability are vital for our System Operations Control Center (SOCC), and large-scale disruptions like COVID-19 put these critical components to the test. Our SOCC is sometimes called the nerve center of Hawaiian Airlines, with a core mission to ensure safe and reliable flight operations for our guests. Housed at the center of our headquarters, our SOCC is where teams work 24/7 to keep our network running smoothly and orchestrate critical functions like aircraft route assignments, crew scheduling, and disruption management such as significant weather events.

David Rouse pictured inside our SOCC before COVID-19, when dispatchers were busy monitoring over 260 daily flights system-wide.

The impact of the pandemic we’re in now, however, has been unprecedented. In just one month, we needed to make constant schedule changes to accommodate the rapid disruption to our operations and our guests’ travel plans. With our network downsized to a small fraction of the over 260 daily flights we previously offered, our dispatching operations also scaled-down relative to the reduced number of passenger and cargo flights. Since March, our Customer Service team and managers on duty have also volunteered to help our Consumer Contacts team respond quickly to a rush of reservation cases. Their assistance contributed to cutting guest response time in half.

Lastly, our automation team has been working tirelessly to identify cost-cutting opportunities, including reducing unnecessary data streaming and assisting our airline’s finance and technical operations colleagues in renegotiating vendor contracts. 

However, our dispatch leaders’ role has not slowed. In addition to overseeing current operations, they have also been working tirelessly on various ad-hoc charter missions that require a high level of expertise and logistical support. One of our more proud examples was our recent humanitarian charter that brought about 1.6 million face masks to Hawai‘i from Shenzhen, China – a city that we had never flown to before. Getting the proper permits and government approvals so we could land at the airport and pick-up the cargo order took an enormous amount of collaboration with multiple departments.

Hawaiian's bustling SOCC before COVID-19.

Our team members' health and safety are paramount. We have implemented several measures that work to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 exposure, including splitting our workforce between our primary and backup sites, opening SOCC doors to allow easier egress, and providing adequate supplies for disinfecting workstations.

My team’s demonstration of po‘okele (to excel) is indicative of their dedication to the success of Hawaiian Airlines. Their fundamental commitment to operate safely and reliably, combined with their personal sacrifice to support the company, has been incredible to witness during this challenging time.