Southwest Airlines gets approval to fly to Hawaii. Here’s why it took so long

Mar 01, 2019

Southwest Airlines will now start making flights to Hawaii, CNBC reports.

The Federal Aviation Administration approved Southwest Airlines to make flights to the island state after years of not servicing flights there. The airline wants to expand its flight services to the island as a part of its rapid expansion for 2019, according to CNBC.

• “We’ll publicly announce our timing for inaugural flights and another service when we publish our schedule in the coming days,” a Southwest spokesperson told Fox Business.

• Southwest finally received extended-range twin-engine operational performance standards authority for twin-engine flights to fly over water, something it hadn’t had in the past, according to Hawaii News Now. The ETOPS, which is needed for flights to Hawaii, requires more training for flight crews.

• The flights could be available as early as mid-March, the spokesperson said.

Flashback: Southwest announced plans to send flights to Hawaii back in October 2018, joining the competition of other carriers who fly to the island, including Delta, American Airlines and Alaska Airlines, according to Yahoo Finance.

• Southwest previously said it would like to send flights out of California cities, including Sacramento, Oakland, San Jose and San Diego. These flights would land in Honolulu, Kahului, Kona and Lihue.

• Southwest CEO Gary Kelly previously said he would like to see flights between Las Vegas and Hawaii as well, Hawaii News Now reported.