Hawaiian Airlines — Local services in Maui

My wife and I got married on Kauai and then honeymooned on Maui. We flew Hawaiian Airlines the entire way. On the trip home we met a couple on the car rental shuttle who were also from Portland, OR. It turns out their flight flew out of Maui at about the same time as ours, but unlike ours, they did not have a 3-hour layover in Honolulu. We inquired at the Hawaiian Airlines baggage check about switching our flight. Back in the day, when airlines cared about customer service, this wasn't a big deal. If you were leaving from the same place and arriving at the same place, and if there were seats available, airlines would switch your flight as a courtesy. We asked for this courtesy.

The woman at the counter informed us there may be a small fee to make the change. She did not know how much the fee would be until she checked. We asked her to look into it. Ten minutes later she was still typing away. I told her we were willing to consider $50-$100, but if the fee was more than that there was no reason to waste our time. Twenty to twenty-five minutes later she informed us it would cost approximately $650 per person to change our flight. She was attempting to sell us new plane tickets at day-of prices and subtracting what we had already paid for our current tickets. This basically doubled the price for the flight. How anyone could have her job for more than a few weeks and not be able to predict the outcome of our query is beyond me. She had wasted more than 20 minutes of our time just to insult us, but the fiasco had not even begun.

She handed us back our ticket vouchers with "OC" written on them. It seems she unblocked our hand picked seats that we reserved 6 months ago in order to investigate changing our tickets. The "OC" stands for overcharge, and we no longer had seats on the flight from Honolulu to Portland. This was a 6 hour flight, and comfortable seats were important. Sorry, we can't do anything about that here. You will have to talk to the ticket counter in Honolulu when you get off the plane. We were never informed this would happen, and we never agreed to it.

We got off the plane in Honolulu. The ticket agent at the gate could not help us. She referred us to the service desk. We stood in line at the service desk for about 10 minutes. My wife told the ticket agent there to give us back our seats. "It isn't that simple," he said. He doesn't control the tickets for the flight. He told us we needed to speak to the ticket agent at the departing gate, but they wouldn't be there until an hour before the flight departs. He expected us to sit in the airport for an hour and a half without even knowing if we had seats. The exchange got heated to the point I told him, "this is f'ing unacceptable!" He warned me that if I insisted on using language like that he would have to call security. I wish I had told him there was no other word to adequately describe what his airline had done to us, but I did not think of it. Instead I glared at him as I clenched my fist, and I shook visibly in anger. It turns out we were lied to because he did find us seats on the flight, but they were all the way in the back. My wife said she wasn't going to sit near the bathroom, and he had to do better than that. I was ready to take whatever, but she had a point. We planned this trip long ago so we would be comfortable on the long flight. He referred us to a supervisor.

The supervisor eventually gave us emergency exit row seats. It took him a while to concede that. I honestly believe the only reason they helped us at all was because we were so angry and everybody in line was was watching and listening. I caught several looks of sympathy and disbelief. The way Hawaiian Airlines insulted us, the uncertainty, and how long it took them to address the problem all combined to ruin our flight. It took another hour for the adrenaline to wear off so we could relax. Shame on us for asked for what used to be a courtesy. The real shame is Hawaiian used to better than the other airlines, but now they nickle and dime you with hidden costs just like...

The worst experience I ever had with an airline. First of all, in the plane they gave us expired food and no one took responsabilices for it. Later because of bad weather our flight coudn’t land in our destination (Honolulu) so we came to Maui where we waited for 1.30 hs on the plane before they let us out, and here is where i’ve been for almost 20 hours now. It is weird because i have friends that went to honolulu with another airline and they were able to land!!! After that, all the passengers had to make a line for almost 2.30 hours to get a new flight (meanwhile we called guest assistance and after a 40 minute holding they said they couldn’t do anything). All of ous got rebucked for different flights, all of those flight were canceled hours later. That ment all of us doing a line again, desesperate to get a sit. At around 12 am (we got to Maui at 2 pm) they told us that our original flight was going to Honolulu, all of us started running to the gate. When we got there they told us that uf we got rebucked (all of us did) we needed to get rebucked AGAIN to that flight, even though most of us still got our original ticket. Everyone asked as to be pacient and they said that “everyone was going to get on that plane”. A few people from diferentes flyes who got rebucked started boarding while we waited for our rebucking to start. Suddenly, the same man that told us that everyone was gonna get on the plane said that the plane had to leave already! While NO ONE of the original flight got rebucked because “they coudn’t Get into the sistem” ????!!!!!. After that all of us had to make a line again, and at 2 am I got a ticket for honolulu at 8 pm!!!!!!. Today, when I woke up (we had to sleep in the airport because no one offered us a hotel or ANYTHING) i asked if at least we could have a locker and they said no!!! And now here i am, almost 24 hours before my original flight left, stuck in Maui. This airline has costed me two days of Vacation and am aiready paid Hotel and car. No one has showed any intentions to make this up to us and they gave us ZERO priority!!! I understand that the weather is not in control of anyone, but this airline has done NOTHING wright. I woudn’t recommend this airline to anyone, please do not...

50 years of using Hawaiian Airlines and they are now in my opinion so far from the Hawaiian Service model that they are offensive in the way they do business with their consumers. They do not provide access to changing or canceling a flight on their app or their website, they prefer to force a phone call and have to have a large reservations department to deal with something that can be easily done on their website, but again they changed their system and created a nightmare for flyers recently. So if you call to cancel (remember now mileage ticket) and you are not the name on the ticket and you share with them that the person is in the hospital their answer is you have to get a medical explanation from the hospital and provide that to them before they will let you cancel. Tickets on the web IF YOU COULD change or cancel would not be requiring anything about this as the ticket would be handled. So a simple procedure now is escalated. Time wasted waiting for a service agent, time wasted because the service agent has no power to make the decision, then the supervisor puts blockade out that in no way can this ticket be canceled without the medical document, unhappy and dissatisfied customer created and the only way out of this is their ridiculous request. Again this is a mileage ticket, no money for them to gain, but they would rather argue with the customer, not serve the customer but instead create a boiling pot of frustration. Hawaiian you do not live up to any of your advertising, you are incongruent and not trust worthy. More reason NOT to fly this airline, if you do you better be a strong advocate for your rights or you will end up like me, in the middle of a medical problem and a ticket that the only way to cancel it is to provide them with a medical document, this is crazy and beyond imaginable...