It has been a long road for Hawaiian to figure out how to replace (er, augment?) its Airbus A330 fleet with a new flagship, but after two failed attemps with Airbus, the airline has officially taken delivery of its first Boeing 787-9. It brought the airplane to Los Angeles to give media and the airline’s mainland ʻohana (really, employees) a look inside on Saturday. I brought my son along to crawl around and ponder just what Alaska might do with this airplane.
I’ve never quite understood the need for a new fleet type when the A330 still has many years to go, but the 787 is larger (300 vs 278 passenger in a more premium configuration), brings more range, and adds more cargo capacity than the A330. It also provided Hawaiian with a blank canvas on which it could create a new onboard product.
The Overall Ambience Hits a Home Run
The new look and feel becomes apparent very quickly when walking on the airplane from the usual door 2 location. The paneling looks like a koa wood — it’s not wood at all in reality — and there is a frond-engraved ceiling bubble at the entrance.
That “wood” extends to floor as well, but only in that entry area. It makes for a strong feeling that something will be different as you board.
And of course, the mood-lighting is in full effect. The fiber optic ceiling lets Hawaiian put twinkling stars up above.
Overall, the airplane feels warm, welcoming, and like Hawaiʻi, which means they hit the bullseye.
First Class Goes Leihōkū
It has now been almost a decade since Hawaiian outfitted its A330s with flat beds, but that product still did not have direct aisle access. The rationale was that most people were traveling together to this leisure destination, so Hawaiian was happy to squeeze in a mere three rows of six seats for a total of 18 up front.
It didn’t take Hawaiian all that long to realize that there was real demand for a more premium product, and there was enough demand that Hawaiian needed a bigger cabin. This airplane introduces the new Leihōkū — “hōkū” means “star,” so this is a lei of stars — first class which is 1-2-1 across, giving everyone direct aisle access. There are 34 seats onboard.
The center section allows you to cuddle with your neighbor if you’d like. Heads are rather close together in this scenario if you have the divider down. Feet are nowhere near each other, but like many of these seats, the footwell is pretty small and confining. Still for someone my height (5’8″), there’s plenty of room to sleep, not that I can sleep on airplanes anyway.
That center divider does go up and down electronically. It has a translucent top but the rest is opaque and gives plenty of privacy. To operate the divider, both people must be pushing the down arrow at the same time to make sure that both parties actually want it down. To put it up, only one person needs to do it.
Each seat has a big screen and a tray table that comes out from right underneath. The table has one wide arm supporting it which seems to do a good job of providing stability. It can also be made to go narrow or wide by rotating the table itself.
The covering on the tray is adequately grippy so that things won’t fly off.
If you turn it the long way and push it forward, there is just enough room to get out without having to stow the tray.
On the side, you’ll find the usual features including a place to stow headphones, a remote for the screen, and a power outlet. Below, you can see me tugging on something. That is a wireless charger, and the wood-piece holds the phone in place. It was a nice touch that helps avoid cords cluttering your space.
And that brings us to what I find to be just downright silly: the door. Yes, Hawaiian has put a door on all of these suites, and it provides no usefulness whatsoever.
The gap you see above, in case you were wondering, is designed that way to avoid rattling during turbulence. It does feel kind of flimsy, so this is a good feature. That’s about the only thing about the door that makes sense.
Why do I hate doors so much? Well, here’s what it looks like if you don’t have it closed.
The staggered nature of the seats means that you still have plenty of privacy whether opened or closed. And when you lean back, you see even less of any other seat. These doors are apparently what the cool kids like, but I find them to have limited utility and not just on Hawaiian. Instead, it’s just another thing that can break.
A Lot of Extra In The Extra Comfort Seats
The beds take up the entire cabin between doors 1 and 2, but then between doors 2 and 3, it’s Extra Comfort time. The seating is in a 3-3-3 configuration as you generally find on 787s — a huge downside for my family of four vs the A330’s 2-4-2 configuration — and the first 11 rows on the sides are all Extra Comfort along with the two rows in the center section making for a total of 72 seats. The rest of the rows in the center and the remaining four rows at the back on the side are regular coach, and there are 62 of those.
The cool blue colors work well, and the cabin looks sharp. Those Extra Comfort seats can easily be identified by the headrest cover. Those seats to have a lot of legroom.
Perhaps the best way to see this is in the last row of Extra Comfort where you can easily observe the difference in seat pitch between the two rows.
A Worthy Coach Product
Extra Comfort may have more room, but for me, the coach seat provided plenty of legroom in its own right.
I’d be perfectly happy in coach on a West Coast – Hawaiʻi flight, but for something longer, I can see the appeal of having more space where the window seat occupant can get out without needing the middle or aisle to get up.
In the last cabin between doors 3 and 4, the exit row adds another 7 seats of Extra Comfort — the sides only have 2 seats in them. These rows are terrible if you value a window view but excellent if you just want space. Behind that are another 125 regular coach seats with the last two rows also only having 2 seats in their side sections as the cabin tapers.
I spent some time in these seats, and I found them to be really comfortable. Most importantly in my mind, I love the cloth seating. I know people seem to have a thing for leather, but you slide around too much in them. And if youʻre wearing your beach gear, it gets hot and sticky. Further, the leather seats show scuffing a lot more than these patterned cloth ones will. Iʻm glad to see Hawaiian went with cloth.
The inflight entertainment screen is plenty big, and thereʻs a bunch of content. I donʻt think itʻs all that much different than whatʻs on the A330s, but I do miss the radio stations from the old days. I always loved listening to Territorial Airwaves when approaching the islands, but none of those stations are around anymore, just albums of music.
A Well-Designed Airplane
Kudos to Avi Mannis, Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer at Hawaiian, and his team for putting together a very nice onboard experience. Avi was there for this event, and as I mentioned to him, just being onboard made me want to be back in Hawaiʻi. It is Hawaiianʻs job to make people feel like there’s a piece of the islands with them from the moment they step onboard. This airplane certainly does that.
Of course, if Hawaiian were charting its own path, that might be one thing, but now that Alaska is acquiring the airline, it remains to be seen exactly how this airplane gets used outside of its traditional markets. The Hawaiian theming may end up seeming odd on a Seattle – London or Tokyo route, but the more dense configuration compared to, say, United at 257 seats or British Airways at 216, should create an opportunity to complement a more traditional premium-heavy product on some of those routes outside of the islands while still serving their core purpose.
