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Following on from the news that Southwest Airlines is launching flights to Hawaii, it now appears as though flights will not commence until 2019.

Southwest originally intended to launch Hawaii flights in August. It now seems like the timeline could’ve been pushed further back. Southwest Airlines’ Chief Operating Officer believes that the FAA will sign off the carrier’s ETOPS manual within 30-60 days. ETOPS stands for Extended range Twin engine OPerations. ETOPS allows twin engine aircraft to fly further than they normally could following normal rules.

What Next?

In order to start training its pilots for ETOPS operations, the airline must have their manual signed off by the FAA. As previously mentioned, the airline is expecting this process to be complete within the next couple of months. After completing this, the airline needs to operate a series of validation flights. Validation flights are empty flights operated by the airline. These are used to prove that the airline is capable of safely operating the route. The FAA States:

The most common method the FAA uses to validate an applicant’s capability is to observe the applicant conduct flight operations. For example, the FAA requires validation flights before granting initial or additional Extended Operations (ETOPS) authority.

Once the airline has completed these flights, the FAA should then give the final sign off to begin flights between the US Mainland and Hawaii. This process of validation flights is currently set to take place in October or November. Tickets could then go on sale for the new route.

When Will Tickets Go On Sale?

It is unlikely that Southwest will start selling tickets for the route before they know for certain the date which they will be ready. Southwest Chief Revenue Officer, Andrew Watterson, told press “We’re well through the process right now of ETOPS authorization, however we don’t want to … be presumptuous about when they’ll be finished, but we’ve always said that we’ll be selling tickets by the end of this year” and that “no one will remember the day we started. They’ll remember if we started poorly, so we want to do this properly and wait for the FAA to finish their process before we start ours.”

Southwest Airlines usually starts selling tickets for new route between 4 and 5 months before launch. Assuming tickets went on sale at the end of 2018, flights would commence around May. There is already a lot of demand for Southwest Hawaii flights, so this time frame could potentially be slightly reduced.

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Competition

When the new routes are launched, Southwest will be competing directly against Alaska Airlines, and Hawaiian Airlines. What sets Southwest directly apart from these airlines is their pricing strategy. Mr Watterson stated “we’d fully expect that we’d be able to lower prices compared to what’s available today”. This is thanks to Southwest’s low cost carrier model mirrored by European airline Ryanair.

While this may seem like a significant set back in affordable flights to Hawaii from California, future passengers can be assured that when the route launches, Southwest will do it properly.