“Even the dollar price went through the roof when you look at hotel room rates and whatnot,” Fuleky said. While the Japanese government has lifted the restrictions, the yen remains weak against the dollar, which adds to the cost of a trip to Hawaii beyond the prices that already have risen because of inflation. Peter Fuleky, who studies tourism for the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, noted it’s not just Japanese travel restrictions that hurt Hawaiian and tourism in Hawaii in general. But he acknowledged generally that international markets like Australia, New Zealand and South Korea have bounced back faster than Japan. Hawaiian doesn’t break down financials by smaller geographical areas, Overbeek said. Precisely how much of that decline was the result of the diminished traffic to and from Japan isn’t clear. Hawaiian reported just $2.3 billion of passenger revenue in 2022, about $262 million less than the company reported in 2019. In 2022, international passenger revenue dropped to just 11% of the total, which also dropped. carriers, which instead have vast networks of mainland routes guiding flights through hub airports with connections to final destinations.īefore the pandemic, in 2019, Hawaiian reported almost $2.6 billion in total passenger revenue, with about $677 million, or 26%, from international flights. It’s a key market for Hawaiian but not most other U.S. The difference between Hawaiian and North American competitors like Southwest can be summed up with one word: Japan. (Cory Lum/Civil Beat/2022) The Japan Factor Despite losing $220 million because of a historic schedule meltdown in December, Southwest Airlines posted net earnings of $539 million in 2022. Southwest has posted earnings totaling $1.5 billion the past two years, after losing more than $3 billion in 2020. Despite a historic operational breakdown in December that cost Southwest $220 million in the fourth quarter, the airline still raked in $539 million in net income overall in 2022, according to its year-end report. It was the third straight year of net losses, which persisted as other airlines have rebounded with the lifting of Covid restirctions.Īnd, while Hawaiian has big plans for the latter part of this year, including a cargo deal with Amazon, Hawaiian needs Japanese visitors to come back. Hawaiian lost $240 million in 2022 due in part to higher fuel prices, labor costs and a pandemic-induced scarcity of Japanese tourists. The last three years have been financially hard for Hawaiian, the island state’s largest private employer and perhaps the most important player in its tourism industry. “Clearly the market dynamics have led to a short-term deterioration of our financial performance in the neighbor islands,” Overbeek said in an interview.īut he reiterated an overarching point: even with Southwest dropping fares to compete, “People are choosing us.”Īlmost four years after Southwest came to Hawaii with its promise of low fares, that apparent loyalty is a good thing for Hawaiian. Hawaiian’s load factor, a measure of airplane occupancy, was 22 percentage points higher than Southwest’s passenger revenue per available seat mile, another financial performance measure, was 29.3 cents for Hawaiian versus 10.6 cents for Southwest and Hawaiian’s average fares of $51 were nearly twice those of Southwest, he said. (Ludwig Laab/Civil Beat/2021) ‘People Are Choosing Us’ Hawaiian Airlines, the state’s dominant carrier, lost $240 million in 2022 due to higher fuel prices, labor costs and a scarcity of Japanese tourists. Overbeek ticked off metrics from the third quarter of 2022, the most recent data available from the U.S. When Hawaiian Airlines executives presented an otherwise downbeat earnings report for 2022, there was at least one bright spot: the state’s dominant air carrier claimed victory over Southwest Airlines in an interisland fare war in the latter part of last year.īy some measures, Hawaiian outperformed Southwest despite the Dallas-based airline’s much-ballyhooed promotion in which it sold one-way tickets between the islands for $39, Hawaiian’s chief revenue officer, Brent Overbeek, told investors earlier this year. As travelers enjoy Southwest’s $39 interisland fares into the spring, Hawaiian Airlines holds the local market but posts net losses.
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