I was happy to see a write-up in today’s news paper that there is a new US-flag airline serving Manila. Hawaiian Airlines, based in Honolulu is now making four flights a week between Honolulu and Manila. Continental and Northwest are the only two other US carriers who actually come to Manila and with the pending merger between Northwest and Delta I wonder if some of Northwest’s flights aren’t in danger.
Anyway, Hawaiian is a welcome change. They "hub" from Honolulu and serve many other US locations (mainly west coast) as well as Sydney, Australia. As soon as someone reads this who has been a Hawaiian customer, please leave me a note, either in the "Comments" section below or via my secure, spam-free content page.
One big advantage is they are the only choice to reach actual US soil without a stop … Continental does serve Manila via Guam, which is a US protectorate, but I’m known for being a nitpicker 
Northwest’s flights all stop in Japan and all the other airlines serving Manila from the US have stops or plane change sin Taiwan or Tokyo or Hong Kong or Guam. Nothing wrong with any of those places but sometimes it’s nice just to take your seat and then step off where you want to be, rather than going through yet another get off, go through security, get back on cattle herding drill.
We wish the new guys well.
Hawaiian goes to Manila? That’s great news. I’ve flown Hawaiian and i like them. I also like the idea of having a stopover in Honolulu on the way to or from Manila. Another benefit is shorter flight time. From SFO to anywhere in Asia is at least a 12-hour flight. From Honolulu to Manila is only 10 hours and 45 minutes (that’s after a five-hour flight from the mainland, of course).
Absolutely agree. Thanks for commenting. You are correct that Honolulu to Manila is the shortest continuous leg anyone ahs to endure. Philippine Airlines flies from Las vegas and from Los Angeles “direct” to Manil, but thye normally make a ‘technical” stop … airline talk for landing to refuel” in Guam. To me these “technocal stops” are worse than stopping to chnage panes, because you can’t even leave the plane … just makes an already long trip longer. Hooray for Hawaiian.
PAL does fly direct, non-stop, from Manila to Los Angeles so Hawaiian joins them as a choice to reach US soil without a stop. Too bad the west-bound trip includes the “technical stop” in Guam or Honolulu (depending on time of year and prevailing jet stream) for refueling.
Correct indeed, Paul, but I was trying to convey that there is only the one _US_Flag_ carrier that reaches the US without intervening stops … scheduled or technical … and that is Hawaiian. I used PAL on my last US to Philippines trip and I shall never use them again,I consider them substandard, rude, and unable to follow their own country’s laws (forcing non-Filipinos who are entering to buy an onward ticket, contrary to the rules of Philippine Immigration … but handy for Mr. Tan’s pocketbook). I won’t say never, because never is a long, long time, but I do not currently use nor recommend PAL. IMO a prime example of how _not_ to run an airline.
Thanks for your useful comment.
I’ve flown Hawaiian to Manila to see my finance’ and now, also now my wife, Had her visit Mama last year. We live in Las Vegas and it is very handy to jump on the plane here, have a lay over in Hawaii for 5-6 hours, looked around the Island, have lunch and fly out to Manila! The flight is quick, the service is excellent and very comfortable! …The price is reasonable and easy to book on line. Cost on both trips were around 1000 bucks return to Vegas with one stop in Hawaii which is fun and gives you a little break to recharge! I would recommend this to anyone….even my x-Wife!! hahaha!
Hi Denny,
Thanks for writing in and especially for giving us your insight on Hawaiian. You’re the first person I’ve run into who has used them. Glad it worked well. I recently went back to Florida for a few weeks and used Northwest (now Delta). The price was OK, the trip was OK, but I really wish now I had tried a different route. Delta’s routes are among the longest in distance/travel time and stopping in Japan has now become a hassle … they’ve gone a bit overboard on the security inspections … there was no fun involved. MNL to HNL ism by far, the shortest difference between Manila and the USA … gonna keep that in mind for bext time, thanks.
Thanks for the repy Philly and I was happy to post my experience……
as a side note, I picked up this article today and thought I would share it with you about the airline industry and the strife they are presently in…….”Why the big airlines are a Pain”….
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Clive Irving Clive Irving – Sun Mar 14, 12:51 pm ET
NEW YORK – A new report on air traffic praises multinational airlines as the saviors of the industry. But aviation expert Clive Irving says bigger companies are exactly what passengers don’t need.
Airline passengers have become one of the largest groups of regularly abused consumers in the world. They have never been effectively organized into a group with real clout. The airlines, on the other hand, have many lobbyists—those deployed by the companies themselves, and those out there working for the industry’s interests worldwide.
We heard Friday from the people speaking for 230 airlines representing 93 percent of international airline traffic—the International Air Transport Association, based in Geneva. They were in an upbeat mood.
Let’s remember that this is an industry that-with rare exceptions-leaves the impression that passengers are a nuisance, to be tolerated rather than served.
Three months ago, IATA predicted that the world’s airlines would rack up a loss for the whole of 2010 of $5.6 billion. Now they have halved that to $2.8 billion, thanks in large part to booming business in Asia and Latin America, whose economies are making a rapid recovery from recession.
Buried inside the statistics was a comment from the boss of IATA, Giovanni Bisignani. A comment that should send a shiver down the spine of airline customers:
“The stark contrast in profitability among Asian and Latin American carriers while losses continue to plague the rest of the industry clearly demonstrates the fact that airlines have not been able to develop into global businesses.”
We know who he’s speaking for. The likes of Lufthansa, Air France-KLM, and American Airlines, who would all like to become the first truly global airline.
But haven’t we just had a salutary lesson in the risks of making already-large corporations into institutions with more power than any single state? They are called banks. And their practices were exposed as ruinously contagious. Why would anyone want to give airlines that kind of reach?
Bisignani and his industrial masters would no doubt argue that if airlines were really global they could be a lot more flexible when one part of the world is in a slump. They could switch services and resources between markets and be better able to manage what they call “capacity”—meaning seats on sale.
Let’s remember that this is an industry that-with rare exceptions-leaves the impression that passengers are a nuisance, to be tolerated rather than served. Over the last few years they have stripped us of one amenity after another and now ask us to fork up even for cushions and blankets. Not to mention attitude from the cabin staff. All that plus crazy security at every airport.
Which brings me to another discomfort: the announcement Friday by the union representing many of the cabin staff of British Airways that they are going on strike. Previously they had vowed that if they did strike they would avoid the Easter holidays—their last planned strike, halted by a court order, was targeted at Christmas and they got an earful from their customers, so decided to show more respect for the Christian calendar this time.
In fact, the second of their forthcoming strikes, four days from March 27, directly hits the Easter school holiday period when many families were planning their getaways, so not much mercy there.
The larger point here is, however, how deaf to the interests of passengers can you get? There is nothing to choose between cabin staff (and BA’s are some of the highest paid and most pampered in the business) who make the customer their victim and airline corporate cultures that just want to screw us on a global basis. In my view, one reason that the business of airlines in North America is lagging so far behind those in Asia and Latin America is not simply that our economy remains weak. It’s that flying has never been more loathed, the airport experience has become intolerable and the idea that this is a service industry has been abandoned without our consent.
One more quick note on Hawaiian airlines….Today, they just released the best airline for 2009…..Guess who!!?!!
Interesting. Thanks for the update on that, Denny. I really must try these guys out, but I think it’s going to be a long time before I go back to the US again. My Florida trip in February was enough tolast me for years and years I think.