News
Hawaiian Airlines cuts China service
August 31st 2018
Another North American carrier is having trouble in the China market. Read More » Four years after launching its Honolulu-Beijing route, Hawaiian Airlines has announced it would terminate the three times a week service from October because of poor performance.
“These decisions are never easy and this one is especially difficult because we believe in China's future as a robust market for the Hawaiian vacation experience. We will continue to market one-stop options to Honolulu from cities throughout China on our airline partners,” said Hawaiian president and CEO, Peter Ingram.
“In the meantime, we will re-deploy our aircraft to pursue other opportunities consistent with Hawaiian's expansion plans,” the airline boss said. Hawaiian flies 278-seat A330-200s to Beijing.
The airline’s withdrawal from the route will give the Mainland’s Air China a monopoly on flights from the Chinese capital to Honolulu. Air China flies two-class A330-200s to Hawaii.
Hawaiian is not the only U.S. carrier having trouble gaining a foothold in China. Last week, Orient Aviation reported American Airlines would discontinue Shanghai-Chicago after previously announcing the cancellation of Beijing-Chicago. American said the China services were “unprofitable and simply not sustainable in this high fuel cost environment” when there are opportunities to be successful in other markets.
United Airlines has cancelled its routes to Hangzhou and Xian and Delta Air Lines is pulling out of Hong-Seattle in October, also because of low load factor.
