Southwest Airlines (WN, Dallas Love Field) sees the launch of flights to Hawaii as a priority, the Texan LCC's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Gary Kelly has disclosed.
According to USAtoday, Kelly told a press conference following Southwest's annual shareholders meeting last week that the Pacific island archipelago was among the prospective destinations being looked at.
"We're deciding what our plans are for 2018 and Hawaii is important to us," he said.
However, when pushed to confirm that service to Hawaii was likely due next year, Kelly retorted: "I doubt it. We have not decided exactly what we want to do for 2018 yet."
At present, the only other LCC to connect Hawaii and the US mainland is Allegiant Air (G4, Las Vegas Harry Reid) which uses its dwindling fleet of B757-200s to run 2x weekly Las Vegas Harry Reid-Honolulu flights. Earlier this year, Allegiant's Vice President (Planning & Corporate Finance), Robert Neal, told ch-aviation the service would be discontinued in line with the B757's retirement, set to occur by year-end.
