News
Hawaiian has its eyes on China and reports bumper first quarter profit
April 29th 2016
Hawaiian Holdings, the parent company of Hawaiian Airlines, last week reported a $51.5 million first-quarter net profit, nearly doubling its $25.9 million net income in the year-ago period, as revenues grew 2% and expenses decreased 2.1%. Read More » Yield suffered 2.9% year-on-year even though the carrier’s load factor improved 2% to 81.8%.
Dunkerley said the improved performance was due to “solid demand for travel to Hawaii, manageable industry capacity growth and the low cost of fuel.”
In December, the airline released a presentation listing 19 cities to which it may expand, including Chengdu, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Guangzhou. It already serves Beijing. “China will eventually be the dominant source to Hawaii,” said Dunkerley. “We want to be part of that story.”
The full-service airline recently announced a revamp of its A330 long-haul premium cabin to feature full-flat business class seats. “The first aircraft is due to be completed later this quarter and after this summer we will be modifying all of our A330s nose- to-tail to the beginning of 2018,” Dunkerley said. “The increasing deployment of our A330s on long haul missions in the years ahead makes this a sensible time to modify our A330 fleet.”
Hawaiian’s ASKs will remain relatively flat until the arrival of its 16 on-order A321neos plus nine options from 2017, and the addition of six A330-800neos, plus six options, from 2019, to replace the eight B767-300ERs currently in service.
