To kick off our visit to Maui post-fire, we hopped on a quick flight with Southwest Airlines. Specifically, we chose a mid-morning departure, Southwest 3524 Honolulu to Kahului. Thankfully, things weren’t too crazy despite us traveling during a typically busy time on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.
As regular readers know, Southwest Airlines is my default airline of choice for getting around Hawaii. Why? Their value proposition is just better, especially since every passenger receives free checked bags, while Hawaiian charges $15 for the first and $20 for the second. Plus, Southwest Rapid Rewards points are incredibly easy to get, as they’re a Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner. However, Southwest has a more limited schedule, so I’ll sometimes fly on Hawaiian instead. But, this time, I stuck with Southwest.
Booking Southwest 3524 Honolulu to Kahului
I booked our Southwest 3524 Honolulu to Kahului tickets quite a while ago. Prices can tend to fluctuate quite a bit, which causes award prices to do the same, but I ended up booking when it was around the middle of its range. I could have saved by canceling and rebooking later on, but I decided not to. That said, for both roundtrip tickets, I paid a total of 15,136 points and roughly $22 in taxes.
These exact award tickets on Hawaiian would’ve cost me 30,000 HawaiianMiles – 25,500 if I had a Hawaiian Airlines World Elite Mastercard. It doesn’t matter how you look at it; that’s a massive difference, especially since Southwest Rapid Rewards points are easier to earn than HawaiianMiles, especially if you transfer from Ultimate Rewards.
I did splurge and bought Early Bird Check-In for both of us on both flights, which cost $60, though my Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority card’s Southwest travel statement credit covered these charges.
Check-In
Because I had Early Bird Check-In, I didn’t need to worry about checking in 24 hours out. But when I eventually logged into the app, I did notice that Upgraded Boarding was available, so I purchased them, which was also free because of my credit card. That took us from positions A20 and A21 to A4 and A5 for Southwest 3524 Honolulu to Kahului. I also took advantage of a new in-app feature and added our one checked bag at this point, which made things a bit easier at the airport.
Speaking of, when we arrived at the airport two hours before departure, we headed straight to Southwest kiosks in Terminal 2, scanned my boarding pass, printed my bag tag, slapped in on my bag, and quickly dropped the bag at the bag drop station. From there, it was a quick walk over to the TSA checkpoint, which had virtually no line. Unfortunately, I was picked for enhanced screening and had to pull all my camera gear and laptop out of my bag for swabbing. Thankfully, the TSA officer was cool, and we engaged in friendly conversation.
Gate Area + Boarding
Once through security, we headed to our assigned gate—A7—in Honolulu’s Central Concourse. By the way, Southwest has virtually taken over this entire area, especially during slower hours. Interstingly, HNL was quite dead at this time. Most of the gates were empty while we traversed terminal 2—at least on the domestic side.
Soon after we got to our gate, one of ANA’s Flying Honus pulled into gate C4 across the tarmac from us.
When we arrived, though, our particular aircraft wasn’t there. Rather, a flight to San Jose was boarding. Our particular plane, N8781Q – a two-year-old Boeing 737 MAX 8, was operating a flight from Lihue. Despite departing 15 minutes late, it did arrive a minute early at 8:54 am. Of course, people began hovering around the gate at this point, but I’m not surprised.
Boarding for Southwest 3524 Honolulu to Kahului was scheduled to begin at 9:10 am, which is a ridiculously tight turn, especially with the load factors they had that day. Naturally, the flight from Lihue didn’t finish deplaning until 9:14 am, which was past our scheduled boarding time. But, I gotta hand it to our ground crew – they were on it! Just a minute later, preboarding began, which took a while because there were probably about a dozen people in this group, most of whom walked onto the aircraft without assistance.
Anyway, at 9:19 am, Group A was called. However, our gate agent stated that she was extremely strict about the order of positions A1 to A15 and called up A1 to A3 first, followed by A4 to A6, and so on.
25 minutes after boarding began, everyone made their way on the aircraft, and the cabin door was closed. Not too shabby – we were not four minutes past our scheduled departure time despite beginning boarding nine minutes late.
Seat
The seats for Southwest 3524 Honolulu to Kahului were like any other Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft I’ve flown, except for one big difference – power. Specifically, N8781Q features both USB-A and USB-C ports at each seat.
Southwest 3524 Honolulu to Kahului
Shortly after the door closed, the safety demo began. Then, four minutes later, Southwest 3524 Honolulu to Kahului began its pushback, eight minutes behind schedule. Our flight crew acknowledged our tardy departure and promised to try to make up our time.
As we pushed back, I noticed that Flying Honus Lani and Kai were both in that day – Ka La continued to evade me.
I also caught a glimpse of an Alaska Air Boeing 737 MAX 9 and Hawaiian Air Airbus A321neo arriving on 8L.
Once we began taxiing, we went pretty quick. It took us 11 minutes from the time we began pushback to reach Runway 8R, going as fast as 40 mph, according to Flight Radar 24. As fast as that seemed, it was a smidge longer than the taxi time on my previous HNL-ITO flight with Hawaiian.
With absolutely no one in front of (or even behind) us, we received departure approval before arriving at the runway and immediately began our takeoff roll when we got there.
May 25, 2024, was a gorgeous day in Honolulu. Just take a look at these views as we rocketed out!
Eventually, we made our way out past Lēahi as we cruised east towards Maui.
Just eight minutes after departure, flight attendants made their way around the cabin with juice and water. We passed on both – it is just a 20-minute flight, after all. In fact, just minutes after service started, we began our initial descent.
On this day, Southwest 3524 Honolulu to Kahului took its standard path to the south of Molokai and directly over Lanai before turning just north of Kaho’olawe to line up with Kahului’s runway 2. This gave us excellent views of Lanai’s shipwreck beach, though my photos of it didn’t turn out so great.
As we approached West Maui, the resort area of Ka’anapali came into view, as did the remains of Lahaina from the tragic and devastating August 8, 2023, wildfires. In the photo below, you can clearly see all the charring in what was once the bustling town of Lahaina. It’s a stark contrast to the lush resort area to the north, though you can also see a pocket of color right in the middle of Lahaina.
From there, we proceeded by Mauna Kahalawai (West Maui Mountains), which is where things began to get choppy – very typical for Maui.
Then, we made our way over Central Maui. Unlike during my last visit here, the area is no longer a barren landscape of abandoned sugar fields. Green has returned to the space in the form of citrus trees and other food crops.
Of course, the farmlands quickly giveaway to bustling Kahului and the airport itself thereafter. A Hawaiian Airlines A330-200 was waiting on the taxiway near the cargo facility as we crossed the threshold.
Then, at 10:21 am, Southwest 3524 Honolulu to Kahului touchdown on Runway 2.
After a leisurely deceleration that took up the entire length of the runway, we turned off and made our way to Gate 3, pulling into the gate at our scheduled arrival time of 10:25 a.m. Two minutes later, the jetbridge was hooked up, and the cabin door opened. Side note: I recently learned that Southwest uses this arrival format at Kahului because the 737 MAX 8’s CFM LEAP engines need 3 minutes of cooling time before being shut down, so the extra taxi time lets them do so.
We filed out of the aircraft, and I headed straight to the restroom for a quick pee break. Then, we were off to the baggage claim. It’s worth noting that roughly half of this terminal is undergoing extensive renovations. As such, we passed through a makeshift corridor separating the gates Southwest and Alaska use. We made it to the baggage claim just as the bags started coming down, and we retrieved our one checked bag just 15 minutes after the cabin door was opened. That’s QUICK!
Southwest 3524 Honolulu to Kahului, Final Thoughts
I give major props to everyone involved with Southwest 3524 Honolulu to Kahului on May 25, 2024. Despite some minor hiccups, they all worked together to keep our flight’s arrival on time and made everything go incredibly smoothly. Honestly, what more can you ask for? I especially appreciate the gate agent putting her foot down regarding boarding order/priority. I only wish there were some way to better control pre-boarding – especially since Upgraded Boarding and Early Bird can cost so much now.
Visiting Maui Post-Fire
- Introduction
- Southwest 3524 Honolulu to Kahului