Say aloha to an upgraded flying expertise when touring with Hawaiian Airlines.
On Monday, the Honolulu-based service formally unveiled the cabins for its new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, which can begin coming into the fleet in November.
The business-class cabin options an all-new seat for Hawaiian, dubbed the Leihoku Suite. Meanwhile, the economic system cabin options facilities that ought to make for a extra snug trip, together with seatback screens, energy ports and extra.
A handful of different nose-to-tail touches will undoubtedly make this aircraft the flagship in Hawaiian’s fleet.
With 12 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners on order, you’ll quickly see these fuel-efficient planes crisscrossing the Pacific to locations throughout the mainland and Asia.
Here’s all the things you have to find out about Hawaiian’s new Dreamliners.
Business class on Hawaiian’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner
When its Dreamliners enter service, Hawaiian Airlines will lastly supply a top-notch business-class product. These twin-aisle jets will characteristic 34 business-class suites unfold throughout seven rows in a 1-2-1 configuration.
Hawaiian went with Adient Aerospace’s Ascent product for its business-class cabin; the service is advertising it because the Leihoku, or garland of stars, suite.
Though Hawaiian is being touted because the launch buyer for this new product, Qatar Airways truly already flies these suites on board its Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners. (Hawaiian was purported to be the primary airline to fly the Ascent product, however supply delays meant that Qatar beat it to the punch.)
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In truth, I’ve flown the Ascent product on Qatar’s Dreamliners, and it is a supremely snug pod, particularly as soon as the sliding doorways are closed.
Perhaps most curiously, the product blends an outward- and inward-facing format throughout the cabin. The window pods face away from the aisle to maximise privateness, whereas the middle seats face one another.
Though this format is probably not fascinating in markets with a lot of solo flyers, it truly works completely for Hawaiian’s leisure-focused demographic.
That’s as a result of a lot of the service’s flyers aren’t touring for enterprise. “We have much more {couples}, we have much more households, we have now much more ladies truly within the business-class cabin,” Avi Mannis, chief advertising and communications officer at Hawaiian Airlines, mentioned in an interview with TPG.
The heart seats on this product are going to be excellent for the service’s demographic, Mannis added. Flyers can decrease the three-tiered privateness partition to the ground. Once the suite doorways are closed, they’ll “create this actually pretty lounge expertise for 2 folks touring collectively … we expect that is going to be extremely interesting for our market,” he mentioned.
Other facilities embody an 18-inch leisure display, common AC, USB-A and USB-C shops and Qi wi-fi charging pads.
When it is time to relaxation, every seat converts into a completely lie-flat mattress. Better but, Hawaiian even put in starry ceiling lights above the business-class cabin to reinforce the sleep expertise on its Dreamliners. This is a premium characteristic popularized by Emirates that I have never seen a U.S. airline copy but.
Hawaiian is advertising this temper lighting as evoking the constellations that guided Polynesian voyagers at evening. This is a part of the design technique that the airline created with famed marketing consultant Teague to honor Pacific naval navigation in a contemporary plane.
Economy class on Hawaiian’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner
In addition to enterprise class, the Dreamliners will boast 266 economic system seats in an industry-standard 3-3-3 configuration. The airline tapped Collins Aerospace to ship the producer’s in style Aspire seat in coach.
Hawaiian touts that these seats characteristic extra shoulder and hip room because of a contemporary design, however they don’t seem to be almost as effectively padded as another economic system seats within the skies.
While most seats will supply 31 inches of pitch, 79 economic system seats will likely be bought as Extra Comfort, providing 4 extra inches of pitch, further legroom and entry to common AC shops.
All coach seats, together with these within the Extra Comfort part, will characteristic USB-A and USB-C charging ports, in addition to 12-inch seatback TV screens.
Nose-to-tail options on Hawaiian’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner
Hawaiian likes to infuse native tradition into the passenger expertise, and that design ethos may be very a lot making its means on board the service’s new Dreamliners. “We pushed for personalization of little particulars that others would not have considered or bothered with,” Mannis mentioned.
The welcome space subsequent to Door 2L is impressed by Hawaii’s native wooden grains, whereas the purple overhead gentle on this space is patterned like a neighborhood flower.
The nose-to-tail temper lighting supposedly displays scenes from the Hawaiian archipelago, together with smooth daylight and soothing sunrises and sunsets. The carpeting’s deep aqua shade is designed to offer an ocean vibe.
Other touches embody the Hawaiian language built-in into the seat numbers and on placards all through the aircraft. Even the bathroom occupancy indicators are designed with Hawaiian clothes and shirts for the feminine and male figures.
No matter the place you look, you may simply acknowledge that you simply’re flying with Hawaiian Airlines.
What’s lacking on Hawaiian’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner
Several notable issues are lacking from Hawaiian’s new Dreamliners.
The first is a premium economic system cabin. This cabin has soared in reputation lately, because it affords an elevated expertise that largely mimics home top quality with out breaking the financial institution for a lie-flat business-class suite.
The Big Three U.S. airways all fly jets geared up with premium economic system on choose long-haul routes to Hawaii, but the state’s flag service determined to not make investments on this cabin on the Dreamliner.
“Our sense was that the demand was such that the cabin must be fairly small,” Mannis mentioned. He mentioned {that a} one- or two-row premium economic system cabin would not be economically viable due to all the additional bulkhead and galley house that will be essential to assist such a product.
Furthermore, Hawaiian’s Dreamliners will not characteristic Bluetooth connectivity to pair your AirPods or different wi-fi headphones with the seatback leisure system. That’s a disgrace for a brand-new aircraft delivered in 2023.
Another lacking amenity is energy shops in the usual economic system seats. However, that was an intentional alternative on Hawaiian’s half — partly to persuade some flyers to improve to the Extra Comfort seats, which do characteristic shops.
Finally, the Dreamliners won’t initially be fitted with Wi-Fi. Though Hawaiian has partnered with Elon Musk’s Starlink to supply quick and free Wi-Fi throughout its medium- and long-haul fleet, the Dreamliners will not characteristic web entry till “the following yr or so,” in line with Mannis.
As stunning as it might appear, Hawaiian is prioritizing different planes for Starlink installations earlier than the Dreamliner.
Bottom line
Hawaiian’s Dreamliners appear like a large enchancment in comparison with its present Airbus A330s, particularly for these seated within the pointy finish of the aircraft.
With a top-notch product that options direct aisle entry and sliding doorways, Hawaiian will quickly supply the most effective premium merchandise on routes to and from Hawaii.
Hawaiian will take supply of its first of 12 Dreamliners in November, with the remaining deliveries deliberate by 2027.
The airline will begin flying the planes to the West Coast, the place it operates upkeep bases, earlier than deploying its 787s on longer routes to Boston, Sydney and past.
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