Sunset, slack guitar and mai tais at the fabulous Halekulani in Honolulu (Photo: Chris McGinnis)
After months of hints and speculation, Virgin America made it official today: Starting November 2, they will fly to Hawaii from San Francisco.
Of course, you can expect that Virgin will do these flights right. I envision funky, tiki touches like mai tais, leis, aloha shirts and Hawaiian mood lighting. For example, the carrier is offering free mai tais to all passengers at SFO’s Terminal 2 today to celebrate the announcement.
Virgin’s new Aloha-inspired gif
But don’t expect amazingly low fares.
Virgin’s introductory fares from between SFO and Honolulu or Maui are $398 round trip with restrictions. That’s more than many of the sale fares we’ve seen so far this year from Alaska Air, Delta, Hawaiian, and United, which at their lowest point hovered around $320-$350 round trip.
To me, that’s a signal from Virgin that it’s not in this crowded market to compete on price. Instead, I bet it will make a big deal about service.
For example, sale fares are available only during the slow “dead weeks” of early November and early December. Want to fly to paradise for Christmas? It’s going to cost you. The lowest economy fare I could find on the site today is a whopping $1564.00. Wanna fly up front in first class? That will cost you $2,998 round trip according to Virgin’s website today.
Checking with Hawaiian Air today, I found fares from the Bay Area to the islands as low as $368 round trip for fall flights– cheaper than Virgin’s introductory fares.
Would you rather use points? Elevate members can redeem reward flights to Hawaii – with no black-out dates, for as few as 8559 points– but keep in mind that Virgin’s redemptions are based on ticket prices.
Related TravelSkills post: 7 things to know about Hawaiian Air
Free mai tais at SFO’s Terminal 2 today to celebrate Virgin’s new Hawaii flights (Photo: Virgin America)
Here are details about Virgin’s Hawaiian schedule:
Virgin says that the flights will be operated with brand new Airbus A320 aircraft that it will get later this year, which will be equipped with fuel-saving, ‘sharklet’ wingtip devices, which help aircraft operate more efficiently, especially over longer haul routes. And they’ll need it– flights to Hawaii run 5-6 hours in length according to Virgin’s website.
What do you think? How will Virgin fare in a market that already has keep competition from four major players? Will you fly Virgin to Hawaii? Please leave your comments below.
Did you miss our TravelSkills Weekend Edition? Not a problem! Here are the links:
Delta Aeromexico + Delta dogs + United beer + 787s delayed + Japan Airlines + Remnants of SkyMall
In Case You Missed It…
- How to avoid fees when you want an earlier flight.
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- Chris goes to SFO to see the new British Airways A380 flight.
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With United flying lie flat business class to HNL, VA is going to have a challenge in getting B class customers. I just returned from a trip to HNL on a 767-400 which was quite nice. I love VA but just reclining for 5 hours is not cool when you can lie flat.
We recently flew Virgin America to Dallas from SFO RT. The person ahead of me forcefully and suddenly reclined his seat as I was reaching down for an item in my carry-aboard. I got smacked hard in the head. We got one small plastic cup of beverage on the entire flight. A flight attendant was in the back playing candy crush for the vast majority of the flight. If anyone ordered anything on the entire flight I did not see it, other than the headphones. The seat-back screen including a map of the flight was very hot to the touch in a spot on the backside. The inflight safety video was awesome as were a few of the women in these roles as eye candy as the one pictured above. Big mistake—we did not take the offer of an upgrade to first class—the bragging rights at the Dallas wedding we attended would have been worth the price of admission. The male flight attendant indicated (as did a passenger there up front) it would have been worth it. This popped up on the screen as an offer at checkin, as did the economy plus type seating that is barely discernable on the return flight.
Bring back the Western Airlines Hawaiian punch bowl!
Tim_Dick, Allegiant does serve Honolulu (from LAX & LAS) and transcends “low yield” by heavily being a package vacation company that sells an entire holiday experience. In fact, its actual name is “Allegiant Travel Company,” not Allegiant Air.
Being in my opinion far more flexible than Southwest, Allegiant has not clung to rigid policies such as serving only secondary airports like Mesa Gateway (AZ) hence its LAX service.
Interestingly, that came about after Allegiant’s Las Vegas rental car vendors complained about the excessive mileages Allegiant customers were racking up.
Sensing an opportunity, Allegiant investigated. Turns out those customers were using its cheap Las Vegas fares to access Southern California.
If Allegiant sees an opportunity–some weakness in the competition–expect it SFO – HNL. Not saying that will ever happen, though.
Wait, is UA the hometown airline that you claim is fiercely competitive? UA is an awful airline; dead last in virtually every metric; they’d struggle to compete with a pack of camels
VA got a great product, but Hawaiian’s First and Economy product is very good and reasonable. Not sure why folks would pay double in F to fly VA especially when HA flies wide body equipment and has the spirit of islands….
This should answer your questions about redeeming Virgin Atlantic miles http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/us/en/flying-club/flying-club-partners/airlines/virgin-america.html
I’d love for this to work, however unless VA’s goal is to burn off their balance sheet of FF miles, Hawaii is a *very* tough nut to crack. It’s a leisure market which has been historically low yield since wide bodies arrived in the 1970s. The hometown airline is fiercely competitive (and will get moreso after its new A321s arrive) and it’s a “can’t lose” market for UA and Alaska. DL less so but gateway to Japan (old NWA routes) and AA “just because.” And then there is SWA “coming soon to an airport near HNL.” The super low fare guys like Allegiant don’t compete so irrelevant.
Good question, Mark! Here’s what Virgin told us about this: Virgin America has had a reciprocal codeshare agreement in place with Hawaiian since 2012 – today, members of both programs can continue to redeem points for travel across both of our networks. There will be a small overlap with our new routes announced today, and our aim is to continue to work closely with Hawaiian to offer travel benefits to both of our guests.
Are Virgin Atlantic points redeemable for Virgin America flights? If yes, are they redeemable at 1:1 with Virgin America Elevate points? Do I have to call Virgin America to redeem?
Will they still have a partnership with Hawaiian? The points on Hawaiian Airlines from LAX to HNL are very reasonable.
First class on Virgin is the same across entire fleet– no lie flat in first class. –Chris
What will their F product look like? Lie flat or crappy recliners? 5.5hrs is same length as a transcon