A Q&A about airfares, interisland flights, the fate of nonunion employees, coordinating with Alaska Airlines and maintaining the Hawaiian brand.
Joe Sprague says the first plane he bought was a Hawaiian Airlines jetliner, with an early version of Pualani on the tail. Back then, Sprague was a kid whose favorite toy was a mini airport, and he says that adding the model Hawaiian plane gave him great joy. Today, as the new CEO of Hawaiian Airlines, he feels honored to help lead the next stages of its consolidation with Alaska Airlines.
Sprague has been with Alaska Airlines for two decades, most recently as president of the company’s Hawai‘i/Pacific region, and has led integration planning since the Alaska-Hawaiian combination was announced in December 2023.
In our 40-minute interview, he talked about many topics, including the future of Hawaiian Airlines’ employees, interisland flights and maintaining the Hawaiian brand while coordinating flights, rewards programs and customer service with Alaska Airlines. The interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
My first question arose from a report out of Dallas that Southwest Airlines will reduce its flights between Honolulu and the Neighbor Islands starting in April.
Q: What about future cuts in Neighbor Island service?
We’ve said we’re going to maintain significant Neighbor Island service. That is our commitment to Hawai‘i as part of this combination between Hawaiian and Alaska. In any sort of market-type situation, we have to respond to demand patterns. But we’re comfortable with the level of demand right now, and I think the level of service that we have today will continue.
Q: What about pricing? Before Southwest entered the interisland market, Hawaiian’s prices were higher.
We’re certainly sensitive to the affordability of Neighbor Island travel, and we will continue to keep a close eye on fares and the other costs of traveling between the islands. It’s a big reason we introduced the new Huaka‘i by Hawaiian program – to acknowledge the long-standing relationship between residents of Hawai‘i and Hawaiian Airlines and to make interisland air travel more affordable. (Starting Jan. 8, each member of the program will get a free bag check-in on interisland flights.)
Another is offering a quarterly discount, either 10% or 20%. (Every three months, each Huaka‘i member is emailed a discount code for 10% off one Neighbor Island booking, either one-way or round trip. Hawaiian Airlines Mastercard members get codes for 20% off.)
Q: The offers are for individuals, so each member of a family should sign up for the program?
Yes, absolutely. And there will be other discounts each quarter exclusive for members of Huaka‘i, including flights to the continent.
Q: You have said that the Hawaiian-Alaska merger will improve your efficiencies and lower costs. How will local residents benefit from those efficiencies and lower costs?
One way is the combination of the two networks. Residents of Hawai‘i will have three times the number of destinations across North America that they can access from Hawai‘i on a single airline. When it was a stand-alone, Hawaiian Airlines flew to certain places on the continent, but not that many and not many that extended beyond the West Coast. Alaska Airlines, on the other hand, flies to over 100 destinations across North America.
The next big benefit is the evolved loyalty program. Already, Hawaiian miles members can transfer miles into an Alaska mileage plan account, and vice versa. Then over the next several months, we will further enhance the loyalty benefits, all sort of culminating in a single combined loyalty program – still a mileage-based program, the only one left in the industry.
Another benefit is Alaska’s preexisting membership in the One World airline alliance that Hawaiian will now also be part of. That alliance includes British Airways, Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific, American Airlines, Qantas and Iberia. Some of the top airlines in the world.
Q: What else is ahead for 2025?
Behind the scenes, we’ll work on major integration projects. For instance, both airlines had hundreds of IT systems; we’ll need to blend those systems, and you can’t do it overnight. One of the biggest is what’s called the passenger service system – PSS for short – sort of the central nervous system for anything, from a technology standpoint, that touches the customer, starting from when a customer calls the reservation center or logs on to the website to book a reservation, change a reservation, upgrade a seat, check in for a flight on the mobile app or at an airport kiosk. Anytime two airlines combine, one of the most critical aspects is to get to a combined passenger service system so the guest experience is as seamless as possible.
We’re going to maintain the Hawaiian Airlines brand forever and the Alaska brand as well, so there will always be a hawaiianairlines.com website. Same thing on the Alaska side, but ultimately there will be a common platform behind that branded cover that is powering all of the technology.
Some people have said, “The Hawaiian Airlines app is fine, but it lacks functionality that a lot of other airline apps have, including the Alaska app.” Well, when we get to a single passenger service system, we’ll be able to deliver a single and much more robust customer technology experience to everybody.
Q: There are a lot fewer people here than the last time I was at Hawaiian’s headquarters. How many of the 1,400 nonunion employees will be left after the integration is finished?
The first thing to acknowledge is what an incredibly talented, professional and resourceful group of employees Hawaiian Airlines has here in Hawai‘i, both front-line, union-represented employees and noncontract or management employees here at the main office. I feel very fortunate to work with them and learn from them.
On the flip side, as we come together with Alaska, there is redundancy in some management or leadership functions. We’re trying hard to set up this combined entity for maximum success and sustainability for the long term. That is something we believe is ultimately in the best interest of our customers, our owners and also the employees who are part of the going-forward combination.
What we have shared since the deal closed is that the vast majority of the 1,400 noncontract or management employees at Hawaiian Airlines have received interim offers for 12 months or beyond to one of the big integration milestones, such as the completion of the single passenger service system that we talked about. And then there’s also a relatively large number that have already received long-term, permanent offers to stay with the airline. Over the next year to year and a half, we’ll work through what are the ultimate needs of the combined airline. The reality is there will be a smaller number of noncontract and management employees here, but there will still be several hundred headquartered here in Honolulu.
Our intent is to maintain a regional headquarters in Honolulu in perpetuity. And that makes sense because Honolulu, I’m sure, will always be the second-largest hub in the network, behind only Seattle.
We will always maintain a very large pilot and flight attendant crew based in Honolulu. We’ve got a fantastic, relatively new hangar that we intend to continue to use for aircraft maintenance. And, of course, at the second-largest hub, the volume of airport employees will always be significant. Similarly, in the Neighbor Islands as well.
So we’re going to have several thousand employees here, and we’ll need a sizable regional headquarters team and leadership team to support those front-line employees. And we feel very strongly about continuing to support the community through a number of community outreach activities.
Q: And continue the Hawaiian Airlines brand?
Yes, No. 1, I want to reinforce the intent of the company to maintain the Hawaiian Airlines brand. The brand is very strong, both for bringing visitors to Hawai‘i and serving the residents of Hawai‘i. Long before we consummated the deal, Alaska’s leadership, starting with CEO Ben Minicucci, was emphatic that we would keep the brand. Two brands in one company – that’s not been done before in the U.S. airline industry, so we’re creating a playbook for what that will look like, whether it’s the website or apps, or everywhere else the branded experience plays out.
We’re keeping Pualani on the tail of the planes but we’re also looking inside at the onboard experience: the flight attendants, food and beverage, in-flight entertainment. What are the signature elements of that branded experience? We’re defining those very purposefully now so they can be retained as we move forward. And we’ll have a brand execution playbook that says, “These are the Hawaiian signature elements. Thou shalt not mess with them.” And the same on the Alaska side.
Q: I feel your energy and excitement to be in this role.
I feel honored to be in this role. I’ve been with Alaska for a long time, so I was part of the merger conversations in their earliest form. I have spent a lot of time in Hawai‘i; my first flight on Hawaiian Airlines was in 1998 and many times since, so I’ve had this affinity for Hawaiian Airlines. Not every airline can lay claim to having a distinct sense of purpose. I’ve always felt that Alaska does because of its role in the state of Alaska. And that first time I flew Hawaiian Airlines, I realized Hawaiian Airlines has that same sense of purpose. That sense of purpose is naturally energizing.
Q: What is your sense of tourism traffic between here and the mainland in 2025?
We want to stay engaged in the conversation that’s happening here in Hawai‘i about what the right level of visitor traffic is. And we feel an important role in introducing this special place to visitors.
We want the combined airline to be as efficient as possible. We’re looking at where Alaska and where Hawaiian are flying to Hawai‘i and how can we optimize that. If Alaska has a flight that departs from someplace in California going to Maui and Hawaiian has the same flight leaving 20 minutes later – is that the most efficient way to serve the market? So we might offer the same number of seats, but spread them out by several hours.
We’ll pay close attention to demand, but there are parts of the visitor traffic to Hawai‘i that are still at depressed levels. Maui still has a ways in its recovery, and Japanese visitor traffic is still down significantly, and there’s a similar impact on Australian visitors. I think we’re hoping for continued recovery to previous levels before we think too much about … some new norm that would be higher than that.
Alaska Airlines has operated freighter aircraft serving mainly Seattle to the state of Alaska for many years. Hawaiian Airlines has more recently gotten into freighter aircraft as well. But even on the passenger aircraft, there’s plenty of opportunity to more efficiently serve cargo demand, maybe with more wide-body jets.
Interesting twist: Hawaiian Airlines-brand jets to fly nonstop Seattle to Asia routes
After my interview with Sprague, Alaska Air Group announced that starting in May it would use Hawaiian’s wide-body Airbus A330-200 aircraft that currently fly daily between Honolulu and Tokyo’s Narita airport to instead fly daily nonstop between Seattle and Narita.
And in October, Alaska said, Hawaiian Airlines planes will start a Seattle to Seoul service, though Hawaiian’s current Honolulu-Seoul service will be unaffected.
Interestingly, Alaska says it will use Hawaiian branding on those transpacific flights even though they do not go through Hawaii airports. Of course, the flights don’t go through Alaska either. Will the combined airline use the Hawaiian brand on other non-Hawaii flights?
The air group also said it would increase flights between Honolulu and Tokyo’s Haneda airport from 12 to 14 a week.
Starting in late March, the air group also said it will offer these additions on Hawaii routes:
- 20% more seats between Seattle and Honolulu, with three of its six daily nonstop flights from Seattle to Honolulu on wide-body Hawaiian aircraft.
- Three daily nonstops with a 25% increase in available seats between Honolulu and Portland.
- Mid-morning and late afternoon departures from San Diego to Maui instead of just morning departures, and newly timed mid-afternoon and red-eye departures from Maui.
- Three more overnight flights to the West Coast: Honolulu and Maui to Portland, and from Honolulu to San Francisco.
Alaska said the restructuring means more flight time for Hawaiian’s flight crews.
“We’ve increased the number of hours Hawaiian’s Boeing 787-9 and Airbus A321 aircraft fly daily. This means more flying time for Hawaiian’s crews and more union jobs. The A321s will fly 25% more than they did before. This strategy mitigates the impact of delayed Boeing 737 deliveries while enabling us to expand our overall network reach.”