- Aloha, and welcome, the day is finally here.
Southwest Airlines has just begun selling tickets
to Hawaii from the mainland of the USA.
Well, tehcnically, that day was yesterday,
but in this video, I'm gonna share with you
eight things you need to know
before flying on Southwest to Hawaii.
I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions,
I do travel guides that are fun, informative, entertaining.
This is part of my series on Hawaii,
I've got a whole bunch more other videos on Hawaii,
including Oahu, Maui, and Kauai,
you'll find links at the end of this video,
or in the description below.
But without further ado, let's go on to the first thing
you need to know before you fly Southwest to Hawaii,
and that is, what the routes are.
Southwest is gonna be starting service
out of two cities in California.
These are the two cities that tickets
are currently on sale for,
and these are San Jose and Oakland.
The first service starts from Oakland to Oahu,
beginning March 17th.
They'll then be adding be adding Oakland to Maui
about two weeks later,
then they're going to start service
from San Jose to Honolulu, and then San Jose to Maui.
Southwest plans to add service
to two more cities in California,
which are Sacramento, and San Diego,
but they have not announced the dates
of when those cities are gonna start flying yet.
Also, Southwest plans to service
one additional island in Hawaii
with direct flights from the US, which is Kauai.
The second thing you need to know
before you fly Southwest to Hawaii
is about interisland flights,
So, Southwest, in addition to
having flights from the mainland to Hawaii,
is gonna have flights in between the islands.
They're launching the first service on April 28th,
They'll be launching Oahu to Maui,
and then a couple weeks later,
they'll be launching Oahu to the big island,
which I'm actually pretty excited about this service,
because there's been a monopoly on the Hawaiian Islands
for the last few years.
Hawaiian Airlines is the only carrier that flies
in between the airlines currently,
and so Southwest will bring some
good competition for those routes.
For the routes they're planning from Oahu to Maui
and the big island, they're gonna
be offering service four times daily,
so four round trips between those islands.
And when they offer the flights to the big island,
well now, you'll be able to connect
from California to the big island, through Honolulu.
The third thing you need to know is about the fares.
How much is this all gonna cost?
Well, Southwest, their introductory fare sale,
which is all pretty much sold out right now
through the initial flights, they were offering $49 flights
from California, San Jose and Oakland, to Honolulu and Maui.
Yes, $49 each way, that's $98 round trip,
less than $100 to get you to Hawaii and back,
that's pretty amazing.
Those fares were available Tuesdays and Wednesdays,
but as I said, the thing was so popular,
they are all pretty much sold out.
So what's left for fares?
Well, it depends when you're going.
If you're going in the spring, they're a little cheaper,
if you're going in the summer, they're a little more,
but think something like two to $300 each way,
if you're booking the cheapest fares.
Though, I will say, these low price fares,
Southwest is famous for them,
and so I would expect these low price fares again,
on future fare sales when they introduce their new routes
from Sacramento, San Diego, and to the other islands,
so stay on the lookout for their fare sales,
I guarantee that some of the cheap fares will return.
Maybe not as cheap as $49,
but Southwest is pretty famous
for offering really rock bottom fares.
The interisland flights from Oahu to Maui
and the big island, they start at $29 one way.
That's a pretty good deal.
Those cheap fares are still available,
the slightly more expensive interisland fares
are 39, 49, and $59, so the prices on the interisland fares
don't seem to go up quite as much as
those ones from the mainland do.
Now, Southwest offers their fares in three classes,
they offer what's called a Wanna Get Away fare,
these are these cheapest fares that we're talking about,
the Wanna Get Away fares, they are nonrefundable,
they're typically these fare sales with advance purchases.
They also offer an Anytime fare, which is refundable,
and a Business Select fare, which gets you early boarding
in their earliest boarding groups.
Now, if you wanna know the prices
for Anytime and Business Select,
well, in the summer, I picked a random day in June,
the Anytime fares, which are the refundable fares
from California to Honolulu, were $599 one way,
$624 if you get the Business Select ticket,
the Wanna Get Away fare those same days, was about $300,
so about twice as much to get the nonrefundable fare.
For the interisland flights, the Anytime fare was 159,
and the Business Select was 179 on that same day,
to go from Honolulu to Maui.
You can see when those Wanna Get Away fares sell out,
then the ticket prices get definitely more expensive.
But really, the good part about all of this
is that even though some of these cheapest fares
on Southwest are sold out,
most of the other carriers that fly to Hawaii
are lowering their prices because of it.
Actually, for the last 60 days,
you could look and see historically,
the airlines were already lowering their prices
in anticipation of Southwest coming into the market,
but United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and Hawaiian Airlines
have lowered the price of many of their flights
from California cities to Hawaii,
to be about that $300 round trip range.
So, whether you're flying Southwest,
or another carrier, this will be good for you,
from a pricing perspective.
The fourth thing to know is about seating.
And seating on these flights to Hawaii
will be the typical Southwest style,
which is open seating, there are no reserved seats.
When you get on the plane, you just grab a seat,
assuming someone isn't already sitting in it.
When you check into Southwest Airlines,
they assign you a letter, A, B, or C,
and then a number, one through 60,
and then when they board the plane,
they essentially line you up in order,
and then board in that order.
So the tip is, if this is your first time
flying Southwest to Hawaii,
make sure you check in online
exactly 24 hours before your flight,
that's the first time you can check in.
If your flight's at 2:00 p.m., you should
be sitting in front of your computer at 2:00 p.m.
to hit that check in button,
to make sure you get an early boarding group.
Otherwise, you might be sitting in those middle seats,
by the bathrooms, not good ones,
so make sure you check in early,
to get that early boarding group, to get the better seats.
Your other options, if you don't mind paying a little more,
you can pay more to get early check in,
and you can also pay more those Business Select tickets
to get that A one to 15 boarding,
meaning that you're guaranteed
to be one of the first few on the plane.
The fifth thing to know is about luggage.
One of the great things about flying Southwest,
and it applies to their flights in the mainland to Hawaii,
and also interisland flight,
is that your luggage flies free.
Well, that is, your first two bags fly free.
Which, if you look at the price of the Southwest tickets
compared to the other carriers, United, Delta, American,
I'm talking about you, and Hawaiian,
those fares typically don't include any bags,
so make sure to factor the fact
that you don't have to pay to check in your bags
into Southwest as part of your calculation.
Though, if you are taking a surfboard,
they will charge you extra for that.
It's $79 to check in a surfboard.
If you're bringing a boogie board,
the boogie board will be considered
one of your pieces of luggage.
Also, if you're bringing pets,
unfortunately, Southwest does not allow pets to Hawaii
unless it's a service animal, or emotional support animal.
The sixth thing to know is about food.
Southwest famously does not serve food on their planes,
just peanuts, or pretzels,
and these flights are not going to be any different.
Well, the one different thing is
they are gonna be offering a new snack bag,
that will have some additional snacks,
but they won't be selling food, they won't be serving meals.
The flight time is five and a half hours,
from California to Hawaii, so make sure you eat before,
or bring some food on the plane with you.
They will be serving some new drink options,
they have some Minute Maid pineapple orange juice,
they have a coconut spiced rum,
and they have a new hawaiian beer
that they'll be serving on board.
The pineapple orange juice is free,
the alcoholic drinks will cost you.
The seventh thing to know is about entertainment.
Southwest, they don't have any screens, this and that,
but they do offer wifi on board
Wifi is $8, $8 for the entire length of the flight,
and they will be having wifi over the ocean,
gate to gate from California to Hawaii.
You can get free entertainment via your iPad
or wifi enabled device, they'll have free live television,
and they'll have movies you can watch,
but Southwest does not have any in-seat power,
so make sure if you're watching on a phone or iPad,
you bring an extra battery pack so you can keep watching
for the full duration of the flight.
The eighth thing to know is about the future.
What's the future hold?
This is just the beginning of Southwest service to Hawaii.
People have asked are they gonna fly to Los Angeles
or San Francisco, likely not,
because Southwest likes to serve underserved markets,
and LA and San Francisco are two airports
that have a lot of competition out of them already,
Southwest has hinted at Las Vegas as another city
that they'll be planning flights out of,
but I will say if you are planning a flight to Hawaii,
if you're planning a trip here, in the next few months,
and you kind of have dates locked in,
but you don't have your flights locked in,
I'd encourage you to make your hotel
and rental car accommodations now,
because all these additional flights to Hawaii,
they're gonna bring more visitors,
and while flight prices are gonna go down,
there's a limited number of hotels and rental cars,
so I would expect those prices to go up,
so book those things before it gets locked in,
and you are priced out of your hotels,
because everybody else has already booked them.
And the last and final thing that you should know
is that I've got more videos on Hawaii.
Whether you're heading to Oahu, Maui, or Kauai,
I've got videos on all of those places.
You can click these links to my playlists for Hawaii
and some of those islands,
or you can find the link in the description below
to those playlists.
My master Hawaii playlist, or one for each of the islands.
Well, I won't say goodbye,
because I'll see you in one of these videos.