Today’s trip report is based on a flight that’s long overdue. After I completed the flight from Dallas to Honolulu with American’s 787-8, I needed an aircraft for the return journey to the West Coast, and what better way than with Hawaiian Airlines’s A330-200? The HNL-LAX route is perhaps Hawaiian Airlines’s most famous one with the type, as it sends the big Airbus twinjet to Los Angeles three times per day, the first flight departing in the morning and arriving in the mid-afternoon, the second departing in the early afternoon and landing at night, and the final one departing at night and arriving in the early morning. As an aside, the flight plan I selected was from the springtime, during the dying days of the HA IATA code, hence why it’s not the current AS of parent company Alaska Airlines. Since I wanted to maximize the amount of daylight on this flight, I chose to do the morning departure out of Daniel K. Inouye International, which turned out to be an excellent choice in my opinion. I hope y’all enjoy the pictures and the trip report!
Server: Solo
Airline: Hawaiian Airlines
Aircraft: Airbus A330-200
Origin: Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, Honolulu, Hawaii (HNL)
Destination: Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, California (LAX)
Flight Number: HA810
Route: PHNL-KLAX
Seat: 2J (Business)
Time En Route: 5 Hours 10 Minutes
The Sun is rising over Honolulu as we prepare to board our aircraft at Gate A2 for the trip over the Pacific to Los Angeles. This is our second-ever time flying on one of Hawaiian’s A330s and our first-ever time in their business class. We’re not going in completely blind, though, as we’ve read a number of reviews of it and they all seem very favorable. Let’s hope we can add ours to that list!
Taxiing by the HNL fire station with the Hawaiian Airlines maintenance and Hawaiian Air Cargo hangars in the background. The ramp of the former is occupied by a couple of A321s and a single A330-200, presumably in for light maintenance. As for our aircraft, we’re fairly impressed so far with the business class cabin. Even though there isn’t any real degree of privacy for the aisle and the seats are worn, they’re still extremely spacious, comfortable and Hawaiian Airlines has taken the step of angling the aisle seats towards it in order to solve the issues of window seat passengers having to maneuver around their neighbors.
Taking off from Runway 08R, commonly known as the Reef Runway, due to it being built on an exposed coral reef. While the buzzsaw sound isn’t quite as loud as on the Trent 800, let alone the RB.211, the 700 series of the popular turbofan family still outdoes the deeper-sounding 900, XWB, and 7000 in that department. Never a dull departure with Hawaiian Airlines in business class as far as jet noise is concerned!
After turning over the island of Moloka’i, we’re headed northeast to California while we climb to our initial cruising altitude of 35,000 feet to burn off some fuel before climbing another couple thousand up the FL370. When we mentioned that the business class cabin has a very open atmosphere and next to no privacy for passengers in it, that applies to aisle passengers. As a window passenger, we have a generously-sized sliding privacy screen that gives us a little bit of space for ourselves. We’re also enamored with the vast space under the seat in front of us to stow things, which allows us to stretch all the way out and relax. As we head toward L.A., we’re reading the menu for this morning’s flight, which unfortunately does not seem to be as varied as we’d have expected. Hope the food is good, at least.
Cruising at 37,000 feet while breakfast is served. While the menu is somewhat limited in its options, the food itself is quite tasty. Not quite Delta One on the A350, but still at the upper end of domestic business class flying. It’s looking to be a beautiful trip to California today.
At FL390 while we watch a movie on the cabin crew-provided iPad. In a strange twist, Hawaiian Airlines’s A330s are not equipped with IFE screens in business class, instead using iPads provided by the carrier. Economy class, on the other hand, does have individual seatback IFE screens. The selection on today’s flight, like the menu, is quite good for what it is, although we wouldn’t mind there being more to watch.
In our final descent over the Santa Monica Mountains, with Malibu and Zuma Beach in view. For passengers with a view out the starboard windows like ourselves, it’s a pretty picturesque descent into Los Angeles. We finished our movie earlier, but still can’t shake the concept of a widebody aircraft at a major U.S. airline having IFE screens in economy but not in business class. Hopefully, when the cabin retrofit comes out in the next couple years, business class will have its own integral IFE screens. Aside from that sticking point, it’s been a very good flight so far.
Landing in Los Angeles on Runway 25L. After a firm touchdown, the petal-style thrust reversers opened up like some great mechanical flower, rapidly slowing us down to our runway exit speed. As we slow down, a Qatar Airways A350-1000 starts its takeoff roll next to us for the long flight to Doha. Looks like another busy afternoon in the City of Angels to us.
Taxiing to Terminal 6 while we repack our personal item. Looks like the cargo ramp on the other side of the field is busy today, with several 747 freighters and a 777F parked there. From what we briefly saw of the aircraft ahead of us on the taxiway, it looks like we’ve got some Alaska and United Airlines aircraft ahead of us, moving at a decent pace. Hopefully we aren’t going to have to wait too long for our gate.
Looking back at our aircraft at Gate 68A while we head to the baggage claim. Our time in business class on the A330-200 with Hawaiian Airlines was mostly a very good experience with a couple minor drawbacks, but definitely a unique one. Besides the extent of the menu and the IFE selection, it can be said to be the best way to get from the West Coast to Hawaii these days. Hawaiian has long had a reputation for outstanding customer satisfaction, and while we could have been more satisfied with the menu and IFE, the service and quality of the food was outstanding. Definitely something to come back to for travel between the Continental U.S. and Hawaii, as well as other flights throughout the Pacific that we’re planning!