Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines frequent flyers have been warned to pay extra attention to their flight numbers in the coming weeks after the two carriers started operating under the same operating certificate.
Under the control of the Alaska Airlines Group following a $1.9 billion merger that cleared the last regulatory hurdle late last year, Alaska and Hawaiian will remain two separate brands operating under a single operating certificate.
With Alaska Airlines being the dominant partner in the relationship, it was decided that Hawaiian Airlines would drop its HA callsign that pilots use to communicate with air traffic control and instead use the AS callsign.
That brought up a major issue for flight planners – Alaska and Hawaiian used many of the same flight numbers, and the only thing that told them apart was the AS or HA callsign.
As a result, the Alaska Airlines Group has had to renumber many of its flights to avoid duplication. While planners tried to maintain similar flight numbers, they found that in many cases, this simply wasn’t possible.
“If you are a frequent Hawaiian Airlines flyer who has memorized a regular or favorite flight, please take note,” the airline warned on Wednesday after the carrier operated its last-ever flight using the HA callsign.
For now, passengers will still see the HA code in front of the flight number for Hawaiian Airlines flights, but next spring, a major IT upgrade will create a single passenger service system.
Once in place, the HA designator will be fully retired, and all flights, whether operated by Alaska or Hawaiian Airlines, will be sold and marketed only with the AS designator.
Despite losing its HA callsign, airline executives have reassured passengers that Hawaiian Airlines will maintain its unique brand and won’t slowly be watered down to the point that it gets completely swallowed up by Alaska Airlines.
To get FAA clearance for a single operating certificate, the Alaska Airlines Group had to integrate training, policies, procedures, and manuals across both airlines – a process that took just over a year to complete.
While Hawaiian Airlines isn’t going to disappear, its presence in some markets is going to shrink to make room for an enlarged Alaska Airlines and the launch of the carrier’s first widebody, long-haul operations.
Alaska Airlines is transforming its Seattle-Tacoma hub into its long-haul base using Boeing 787 Dreamliners that once belonged to Hawaiian Airlines.
Meanwhile, Hawaiian Airlines will concentrate its long-haul operations in Honolulu.
If Alaska could start serving Hawaiian’s guava juice on-board all the newly combined airline, that’d be swell. Yummers!