Hawaiian Dreamliners in 2025

Hawaiian Air’s first two Boeing 787-9s are on familiarization routes right now, flying first between Honolulu and Los Angeles and San Francisco and now between Honolulu and Los Angeles and Phoenix. However, it seems like not much will change for the Hawaiian Dreamlieners in 2025. 

When airlines introduce a new type into their fleet, they typically put them on familiarization routes. This usually means operating them out of one of their primary hubs on shorter routes. The purpose is to allow crews to familiarize themselves with all of the workflows the new type brings with it. For its 787 familiarization routes, Hawaiian chose to keep its Dreamliners in the southwest region, which made sense. But, as their operations normalize, where will Hawaiian send them next? Looking at their currently available schedule, it seems the Hawaiian Dreamliners in 2025 will continue to stick close to home. 

Hawaiian Dreamliners in 2025

As we all know, Hawaiian acquired the Boeing 787-9 to help further its reach and improve its efficiency on longer routes. However, as the type normalizes in its fleet, it doesn’t look like its strategy is really changing for the Hawaiian Dreamliners in 2025. What do I mean by this? Well, Hawaiian is currently selling tickets through June 2025. When you look at their available flights and the aircraft assigned to them, you’ll notice that the Airbus A330-200 is still assigned to their New York, Boston, Tokyo, and Sydney routes. I get the last two, as demand from them has yet to recover, but the other two? 

So, if the Hawaiian Dreamliners in 2025 aren’t flying to the U.S. East Coast, where are they flying to? It seems that Hawaiian wants to keep them rotating through Los Angeles. Specifically, according to their website, the HA2/HA3 flights between Honolulu and Los Angeles are remaining as-is through the end of the current schedule, while HA33/34 is being up-gauged to the 787. In case you’re wondering, HA33/34 is Hawaiian’s flights between Kahului and Los Angeles, and the change is occurring in early January 2025. 

Why is Hawaiian doing this? I haven’t a clue. That said, their JFK service requires two frames to operate, as planes (and crews) must overnight in JFK. And with only two 787s currently operating, that’s not ideal. Keeping them closer to home allows Hawaiian to make better use of what they’ve got and makes irregular ops recovery easier. However, with three more 787s due for delivery over the next 18 months (though production delays put this into question), I expect this to change at some point.

Merger

Of course, the elephant in the room is Hawaiian’s merger with Alaska. Since we’re supposed to find out if the merger can proceed or not next week, and integration should be on its way later this year (if approved), then it might make sense not to do too many things with the 787 yet, either. I’m sure Alaska has its own ideas on how to utilize these birds, though I’m still thinking that they’ll likely keep Hawaiian’s Dreamliners theirs and take later production slots for Alaska-branded 787s. But, of course, that’s my theory, and we’ll have to wait and see what ultimately happens.

Final Thoughts

There you have it. While I’m sure there are those out there who wanted to see the 787s on longer routes sooner than later, it seems as if the Hawaiian Dreamliners in 2025 will remain close to home – at least for the first half of the year. This strategy completely makes sense to me based on route aircraft utilization requirements alone. However, let’s not forget that the A330 fleet will be fully equipped with Starlink WiFi by the end of the year, too. I’m sure passengers on the JFK and BOS routes will appreciate having WiFi accessibility on the long flights.