The outlook for airline seats into Hawaii softened this month with losses widening into the peak summer tourism season, exacerbating concerns that demand for leisure travel will hold amid worldwide economic uncertainty.
Jeffrey Eslinger, senior director of market insights for the Hawai‘i Visitors and Convention Bureau, said overall capacity and flight numbers at the moment from the U.S. continent to Hawaii show a slight increase.
Still, Eslinger said, “With only a modest international recovery, Hawaii will remain highly reliant on U.S. mainland visitors. Airlines have strategically front-loaded capacity cuts to adjust for weaker early demand.”
Total U.S. trans-Pacific airline seats for April were projected to rise 1% from the same period in 2024, while May seats were expected to rise 4%, according to HVCB data. However, the data shows that U.S. trans-Pacific airline seats for June are forecast to fall 7% from the same month in 2024 and to drop 8% in July and 8% in August.
International airline seats for April are up 17% from April 2024, led by increases from Hawaiian Airlines, according to HVCB data. But there are sharp drops in May and June, with seats down 10% and 13%, respectively.
Eslinger said stabilization of the international market is expected by July and August, which “show recovery, with modest gains in actual seats and flights, although percentages remain negative due to earlier high baselines.”
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So despite stronger international growth in April, Eslinger added that “decreased international seats in May and June will likely reduce international arrivals during the early summer peak travel season. This decline will be particularly noticeable on Oahu, especially in Waikiki.”
The seat declines in some markets hold appeal for some Hawaii residents who were concerned about overtourism before the COVID-19 pandemic and fear recovering visitor arrivals will strain the state’s carrying capacity. At the same time, air seat downturns are worrisome to those who seek to grow Hawaii’s tourism-dependent economy as the state’s distance from visitor source markets makes it primarily a fly-to destination.
In 2024, more than 9.5 million visitors out of more than 10.2 million came by air, comprising about 93% of Hawaii’s visitor arrivals, according to the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. Through March of this year, 98% of Hawaii’s arrivals came by air.
Jerry Gibson, president of the Hawai‘i Hotel Alliance, said the drop in air seats is concerning, especially when combined with an inconsistent hotel booking pace, which is showing signs of weakness from June 15 to Aug. 15.
“Into June and July, we are down 35% to 40% in pockets across the state,” Gibson said.
He said consumers are booking travel to Hawaii closer into their trips; however, now is the time that hoteliers should start seeing some pick-up. Instead, “we don’t see anything that’s consistent, and for good reason.”
“People are waiting to decide if they should travel because of the tariffs and the economy,” Gibson said. “We also don’t have the base government travel. We still don’t have California, our breadbasket, (recovered) after the massive fire (there).”
GIBSON SAID another concern is that international visitor arrivals have not recovered to a level to offset softening from U.S. markets.
“Japan isn’t coming back for summer in the way that we had hoped. Canadian business is down, Oceania is down,” he said. “Every segment that we normally enjoy welcoming is down, and that’s going to impact your pace.”
Eslinger said changing school calendars also are affecting summer travel to Hawaii.
“The true summer now is literally the month of July with a couple of weeks in June or August,” he said. “My nephew in Scottsdale (Arizona) goes back to school the first week of August.”
Gibson said inconsistent marketing also is contributing to Hawaii’s softening tourism, especially when competitive destinations like Mexico are vying for the U.S. market by offering those on tourist visas perks such as refunding some of the value added tax, which applies to most goods and services.
Keith Vieira, principal of KV &Associates, Hospitality Consulting, said problems at the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority have led to a drop in destination marketing just when marketing is needed to drive summer demand.
“The industry is funding marketing, but we don’t have destination marketing and that needs to happen soon,” Vieira said. “If we miss the window, the industry unfortunately tends to do a lot of short-term marketing because you are trying to drive your business in the short run, and any time you do that, you aren’t putting the necessary dollars in the long run.”
Gibson said the shorter booking window has bought Hawaii tourism a little more time to appeal to consumers, and he’s hopeful HVCB will soon launch a Maui recovery campaign since Gov. Josh Green released $6.3 million in reserve funding earlier to support it.
“They had been working on it for April but there were some hiccups there, and now they are working to get it out hopefully by the end of May,” he said. “It’s geared to Maui because of the troubles that they have had (since the August 2023 wildfires).”
Chris Kam, president and chief operating officer of the strategic research firm Omnitrak, said a robust marketing effort could still save the day.
However, Kam said, “U.S. consumer confidence is still falling, but it appears that the world has reached a point where leisure travel is considered a vital part of life. People will go on trips because they need travel to maintain a quality of life.”
He opined that the desire mixed with all the uncertainty is what has led to an uneven booking cycle with some weeks up and others down.
“One thing that happens during periods of economic uncertainty is that people will start traveling closer to home. When you are an island destination dependent on air travel, that’s a challenge,” Kam said.
Vieira said it’s important to act fast in addressing the downturn because a strong summer is needed to build momentum to carry Hawaii tourism throughout the year.
“If you miss summer, you miss the year,” he said.
And, if demand drops too much, Vieira said Hawaii runs the risk of losing more air seats.
SOUTHWEST CHIEF Operating Officer Andrew Watterson said, “Aircraft, by definition, are mobile, and so Hawaii, if demand goes up or down, we move aircraft in or out. We are well above our entry point but below our peak.
“There are probably 30 cities we can say that about. It’s down from 2022 levels but way above 2018. As demand for travel and Hawaii recovers, we’ll add more planes back,” he said.
Watterson said Southwest’s seats to Hawaii have stabilized since April, when there was “a small reduction in interisland and a change of mainland flying from daytime to red-eye.”
Watterson said the changes have left Southwest just shy of 700 employees in Hawaii and “hiring for normal turnover.”
“We are down slightly from the (employee) peak. We have less flying than we did a few years ago because demand for travel to Hawaii is down (from that period),” he said. “With reduced flying, we need less people.”
While Hawaiian and Alaska airlines are still making changes in the aftermath of their merger, overall seats to Hawaii are slightly up. Still, they, along with other carriers in the market including Southwest, recently pulled their full-year guidance, a forecast of earnings or financial performance, due to macroeconomic uncertainty.
“In the first nine months of this year (January to September), Hawaiian and Alaska together will offer 1.45% more seats between Hawaii and the U.S. Continent, compared to our airlines’ separate operations during the same period last year,” Hawaiian Airlines spokesperson Alex Da Silva said via email. “We are still finalizing our schedule for the last quarter of 2025.”
Alaska Airlines’ combination with Hawaiian Airlines has made it the fifth-largest U.S. carrier, with over 40% of the Hawaii-U.S. mainland seat share.
“To support our growth, we are hiring 500 Hawaiian Airlines flight attendants in 2025 — our largest recruiting effort in recent years — in addition to pilots, mechanics, and positions in airport operations in Hawaii,” Da Silva said. “Today we have about 2,100 flight attendants, out of a Hawaiian Airlines workforce exceeding 7,000 people.”
He noted that Hawaiian is recruiting for 30 to 40 flight attendants who can also speak Korean and/or Japanese to staff the airline’s international flights.
Hawaiian Airlines daily nonstop Seattle-Narita service began last week; it will be followed by Seattle-Incheon service Sept. 12, Da Silva said.
