Last updated on April 17th, 2024 at 12:42 pm
In early April, Hawaii’s hometown airline warned about an impending technology project. Unfortunately, as many have seen, Hawaiian Air flubbed its IT upgrade, frustrating, and even stranding some passengers.
On April 5, I received an email from Hawaiian Airlines that outlined their upcoming reservation system upgrade. In their email, they notified customers that, beginning on April 18, the following changes would go into effect:
- You must contact Hawaiian’s (AWFUL Philippines-based) reservations department for support with making existing ticket changes, inquiring about travel credits, purchasing HawaiianMiles, sharing HawaiianMiles for a fee (non-credit card holders), and requesting receipts
- Saved traveler information would be unavailable in Hawaiian’s mobile app, but would be available on their website
- Fare Holds are temporarily unavailable
- Gift card redemptions are available only via the website
- Uplift payments will be temporarily unavailable – completely
- Saved payment information is unavailable
After the upgrade, expect the following:
- Payment information needs to be re-entered and saved
- Hawaiian Airlines World Elite Mastercard cardholders will be re-issued discount codes for their annual $100 Companion Discount or one-time 50% Companion Discount
So what’s all of this for? I’m sure there are many back-end things customers won’t see, but customer-facing changes include:
- Miles earned from flights will post soon after the completion of your flight, and status updates will occur within 24 hours after of the flight in which they were earned
- Award flight changes or cancellations made on the new system will be redeposited to your account faster – how much? I don’t know. It can already take MONTHS on the existing system.
- Elite Extra Comfort upgrades will be available during check-in
- Pualani Platinum neighbor island flight first class upgrades will be available at check-in
Hawaiian Air Flubbed Its IT Upgrade
It’s worth noting that in its email and on its Technology Upgrade page, they do not disclose how long the “temporary” changes are supposed to last. I suppose that’s because they had hoped that the update would be like flipping a switch. It was not. In fact, what became painfully obvious very quickly is that Hawaiian Air flubbed its IT upgrade.
On April 19, the day of the change, everything went to hell. According to Hawaii News Now, online bookings and check-ins became unavailable as Hawaiian worked to bring its systems back online. They suggest that customers that can’t check in online can do so at airport kiosks. However, things were worst than that news outlet suggested. In fact, KHON 2 News reports that many passengers couldn’t even check in on the kiosks. Instead, they had to see a representative to try to get checked in, though they were often told to keep trying the kiosk, and, from what I’ve heard from others, even reps couldn’t find some existing reservations.
Many passengers on the 19th ended up taking two to three hours to check in – if they could even check in at all. That resulted in a huge number of passengers missing their flights. Company officials said that the pain should be over by the 20th… But it wasn’t.
Hawaiian Air Flubbed Its IT Upgrade – Day 2
According to KHON 2 News, Hawaiian continued to experience kiosk issue on April 20. The main issue that day was the inability to print bag tags. To add insult to injury, it sounds like only a select few customer service reps could help passengers, with many passengers ending up waiting in line for over an hour.
Further, online and in-app booking remained unavailable on April 20, too. The Airline actively encouraged its passengers to make reservations via third-party travel agencies.
Ongoing Pain
Unfortunately, Hawaiian Air flubbed its IT upgrade, and the pain continues. As of 7:30 pm HST on April 20, Hawaiian continued to warn passengers that they should arrive at the airport with ample time to deal with potential issues. Currently, they’re suggesting arriving at the airport at least two hours prior to departure for inter-island flights and three hours prior for all trans-Pacific flights. They also caution anyone looking to change their flight because of a known delay that they should do so by phone via their awful reservation call center – not at the airport.
Final Thoughts
Honestly, I’m not surprised that Hawaiian Air flubbed its IT upgrade, and I’m not surprised that they didn’t communicate the issues with their customers. Hawaiian has NEVER been good about communicating even simple delays, even when they knew of the delay far in advance. But, man, the timing couldn’t have been worse. This came at almost the same time as Southwest’s brief (but painful) IT-induced ground stop and amongst Mokulele’s own shitshow. So, yeah. If you’re planning on flying within Hawaii within the next couple of days – good luck. And, man, I hope it’ll take just another day to two to fix, but you never know!
Of course, like last time Hawaiian had issues, know your rights and how to get a resolution from them.