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Hawaiian Airlines Pikake Business Class to Japan
I was invited to my godson’s baptize in Kaohsiung this past Sunday and since I have some American Airlines miles available, I decide to try an unusual route, other than the typical CX or JAL flights. Hawaiian Airlines is a partner for many US major airlines, and American Airlines actually display HA’s award inventory online. I am able to hold the required HA segment, and then call AA to add the CX segments. Yes Hawaiian Airlines flies nonstop to Taipei from Honolulu but the departure time is very inconvenient, and onboard service is dramatically reduced. I won’t get to experience the full main meal service that looks pretty good from various reports on a Japanese aviation website. Of course the seat will be a typical domestic style first class seat so I will avoid it if I have to do a redeye. My routing is Las Vegas to Osaka Kansai via Honolulu, and Airbus A330-200, in which the premium seats are at least better than Boeing 767s, operates all two flights. I am going to be very honest that I am glad that I do these two flights and have no regrets of doing it, but I will not desperate for a repeat until HA does something with the seats. Those are not acceptable for any flights above six hours, and Hawaiian Airlines is not really heavily discounting these seats. If they sell them like a premium economy seat, I can accept it, but as a business class cabin, they are not good, especially on redeye flights. The service in general is a bit better than I expect but there is a major difference between the LAS-HNL segement and the HNL-KIX segment. The international crews especially the Japanese speaking crews are much better. Here is the full report!
October 2, 2013
HA 7 LAS-HNL Lv0900 Arr1205 Airbus A330-200 N382HA “Iwakeli’l”
New Terminal Three departure curbside:
Hawaiian Airlines actually parks its planes on Terminal Two, and Gate D35 is pretty much its designated gate. However, check-ins is taken place on the newer Terminal Three, which is good and bad in some ways. Good is that the security line is generally lighter in the morning hours (before the European late afternoon rush), and bad is that you need to arrive a bit earlier to the airport and is a bit of a walk to the HA gates, which requires an additional tram ride. The check-in area is setup in an interesting way and it can be confusing. But they basically have a priority line and encourage you to use the kiosks to print your boarding passes or print your own boarding pass at home. There was a bit of wait for priority line, as the gentleman in front of me needed some receipts for something. However after ten minutes, a very friendly agent, JoAnn, checked in for me. We had a very long chat and she worked for both AA and HA, so she was familiar with the ticketing. Interestingly, she was able to check my bag all the way to Taipei (but I actually spent a night in Kansai before catching the morning flights to TPE). She could not issue the boarding passes on the non-Hawaiian Airlines segment but was curious on my choice of routing. Then she told me that I had access to “the Club at LAS” located in Terminal Two, which was my plan to visit today using my Priority Pass. She tagged my bags with priority tags and would see me later in the gate. It was a pleasant start!
First Class & Premier Priority lane:
Check-in area for Hawaiian Airlines in LAS:
Ticketing hours
There is a Pre line, priority lane and regular line. It is not overly busy this morning and I got to spend a bit of time in the lounge catching up on the news of the government shutdown in CNN. The lounge itself is pretty nice with some comfortable sofas and working areas. There used to be a bathroom in house but that seems to become history. Food wise is fairly limited to some fresh fruit, one kind of Danish, and mostly packaged stuffs. The staffs are pretty nice though. A typical USA lounge experience!
I was invited to my godson’s baptize in Kaohsiung this past Sunday and since I have some American Airlines miles available, I decide to try an unusual route, other than the typical CX or JAL flights. Hawaiian Airlines is a partner for many US major airlines, and American Airlines actually display HA’s award inventory online. I am able to hold the required HA segment, and then call AA to add the CX segments. Yes Hawaiian Airlines flies nonstop to Taipei from Honolulu but the departure time is very inconvenient, and onboard service is dramatically reduced. I won’t get to experience the full main meal service that looks pretty good from various reports on a Japanese aviation website. Of course the seat will be a typical domestic style first class seat so I will avoid it if I have to do a redeye. My routing is Las Vegas to Osaka Kansai via Honolulu, and Airbus A330-200, in which the premium seats are at least better than Boeing 767s, operates all two flights. I am going to be very honest that I am glad that I do these two flights and have no regrets of doing it, but I will not desperate for a repeat until HA does something with the seats. Those are not acceptable for any flights above six hours, and Hawaiian Airlines is not really heavily discounting these seats. If they sell them like a premium economy seat, I can accept it, but as a business class cabin, they are not good, especially on redeye flights. The service in general is a bit better than I expect but there is a major difference between the LAS-HNL segement and the HNL-KIX segment. The international crews especially the Japanese speaking crews are much better. Here is the full report!
October 2, 2013
HA 7 LAS-HNL Lv0900 Arr1205 Airbus A330-200 N382HA “Iwakeli’l”
New Terminal Three departure curbside:
Hawaiian Airlines actually parks its planes on Terminal Two, and Gate D35 is pretty much its designated gate. However, check-ins is taken place on the newer Terminal Three, which is good and bad in some ways. Good is that the security line is generally lighter in the morning hours (before the European late afternoon rush), and bad is that you need to arrive a bit earlier to the airport and is a bit of a walk to the HA gates, which requires an additional tram ride. The check-in area is setup in an interesting way and it can be confusing. But they basically have a priority line and encourage you to use the kiosks to print your boarding passes or print your own boarding pass at home. There was a bit of wait for priority line, as the gentleman in front of me needed some receipts for something. However after ten minutes, a very friendly agent, JoAnn, checked in for me. We had a very long chat and she worked for both AA and HA, so she was familiar with the ticketing. Interestingly, she was able to check my bag all the way to Taipei (but I actually spent a night in Kansai before catching the morning flights to TPE). She could not issue the boarding passes on the non-Hawaiian Airlines segment but was curious on my choice of routing. Then she told me that I had access to “the Club at LAS” located in Terminal Two, which was my plan to visit today using my Priority Pass. She tagged my bags with priority tags and would see me later in the gate. It was a pleasant start!
First Class & Premier Priority lane:
Check-in area for Hawaiian Airlines in LAS:
Ticketing hours
There is a Pre line, priority lane and regular line. It is not overly busy this morning and I got to spend a bit of time in the lounge catching up on the news of the government shutdown in CNN. The lounge itself is pretty nice with some comfortable sofas and working areas. There used to be a bathroom in house but that seems to become history. Food wise is fairly limited to some fresh fruit, one kind of Danish, and mostly packaged stuffs. The staffs are pretty nice though. A typical USA lounge experience!
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