Inaugural Hawaiian Airlines A330 gets a water cannon salute upon arrival in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo: Hawaiian Air)
A NEW WAY TO AUCKLAND. On Wednesday, Hawaiian Airlines added yet another new international route from Bay Area airports via its Honolulu hub: Auckland. Flights operate Monday, Wednesday and Friday only using a 294-seat Airbus A330. We checked on roundtrips in mid April and found fares as low as $766 round trip including all taxes and fees. (That is a remarkably good deal.) Business class is in the $5,000 to $6,000 range. Only Air New Zealand offers nonstops to Auckland from SFO. The New Zealand city is the seventh new international destination Hawaiian has added since 2010, which include Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and Sapporo, Seoul, and Brisbane. Flights from Honolulu to Sendai, Japan start in June service to Taipei cranks up in July. Hawaiian has also launched a Facebook promo campaign for two free tickets. Would you consider flying Hawaiian to New Zealand or Asia? Why or why not?
Screenshot of Hawaiian Air booking
NEW UNITED APP. This week United introduced a new app for Windows Phone 8 that allows users to book flights (including award travel), check in, get mobile boarding passes, monitor flight status and view Mileage Plus accounts. The United Windows Phone 8 app is available from the Windows Phone Store. Since the Bay Area seems to be Apple country, I have a question: Do you or anyone you know have a Windows phone? How is it?
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Knee room in an “Even More Space” seat on my recent JetBlue flight SFO-BOS. (Photo: Chris McGinnis)
JETBLUE ADDING PREMIUM FLIGHTS? JetBlue is hinting around that it might add some sort of premium seating on its transcon flights from Bay Area airports, according to AP. Have you flown JetBlue back east? What did you think of the product? From my experience, the JetBlue coach seat is quite comfortable, but without wi-fi for those 5-6 hour flights, it’s a tough sell for wired travelers. However, JetBlue says it is getting new satellite-based wi-fi this year.
MUSICAL GATES AT SFO. Here’s an interesting email from a dumbfounded reader who wasn’t warned about the fiasco of flying on United Express out of SFO. “So weird. We came to the United terminal at SFO to fly to Burbank but now we have to take this weird shuttle to another terminal. Had to go thru an ‘employee only!’ Entry down some rickety stairs and on to a tiny little bus thing. So odd!!!” It could get even more confusing…we hear from SFO insiders that United will soon start using gates in the Delta gates (C) at Terminal 1, too. Stay tuned…
ON-TIME PERFORMANCE AT SFO. When you hear Virgin America and United chest beating about their stellar on-time performance at SFO in January, don’t forget this important fact: January 2013 was the third driest January in SF history! Just wait til the fog rolls in!
Dramatic rooftop pool at the brand new Okura Prestige hotel in Bangkok (Photo: Chris McGinnis)
BUSINESS TRIP: BANGKOK. Are you headed to Bangkok…or do you just dream about going there? Check out the advice and photos in Chris McGinnis’s latest BBC Business Trip: Bangkok— read up on the rash of new luxury hotels, where to get great Thai food, where to get a suit made, and why you should NOT ask for chopsticks.
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About United (United Express) using Boarding Area C (Delta), my guess is that Frontier will shift to Boarding Area B, sharing gates with US Airways or Southwest. Frontier’s gate 43 next to the control tower construction would be able to accomodate two or three small commuter aircraft.
I noticed that some United Express flights still use Terminal 3. Perhaps those are the flights that may shift to Boarding Area C in Terminal 1 because of increased Summer traffic putting all United Express flights in Terminal 1 temporarily. After Boarding Area E’s re-opens in November, this will all change again, and all of United’s domestic operations will be in Terminal 3. Stay tuned for the future of Terminal 1……big changes start happening to Boarding Area B in 2016. Final completion 10 years later in 2026. Terminal 1 may end up being the best one down the line. Right now, T2 takes the cake, and Marie Antoinette isn’t invited to any more parties. As of now, when I look up at the ceiling of the International Terminal, my thoughts turn to Celine Deon screech and the theme from Titanic as they lowered the life rafts.
I can’t see Delta moving any flights out of that area to accomodate United Express, but Frontier could easily shift over to Area B without any affect. Their ticket counter (next to Alaska) is just as close to Area B. Delta seems to utilize their 8 gates fully. In the summer, even more so.
Oh no! Please don’t move any United Flights to Delta’s Terminal! One of the best things about flying Delta out of SFO is the relatively shorter security line in Terminal C.