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Its been on the news here - but figured everyone in this forum isn't necessarily from Hawaii.
Starting June 1, 2012, for those people who buy tickets to Hawaii - Hawaiian Air will not accept bags from a connecting flight unless all the flight segments are on the same ticket. In that scenario - you will have to pick up your bag and re-check in with Hawaiian. The same applies if you fly interisland on Hawaiian and connect to lets say, Delta Airlines - if all the segments are not on the same ticket you have to pick up your bag at baggage claim and re-check with Delta.
Old-way: On separate tickets, check in flight in San Francisco on United to Honolulu - have a flight to Kona on Hawaiian 2 hours after arrival. You could ask United to tag the bags all the way to Kona. You simply grab your Hawaiian flight (got your boarding pass online or at an agent in HNL)
New way. On separate tickets, check in flight in San Francisco on United to Honolulu - have a flight to Kona on Hawaiian 2 hours after arrival. You must pick up your bag in HNL - check in at Hawaiian (and pay bag fees again) and go thru security again.
If your flight is SF to HNL to Kona all on one ticket - you are fine, no need to re-check.
A lot of people do separate tickets as that can often be a cheaper option to break it up.
I can't tell you how angry this makes me. I've wrote letters to all I can think of in the company with no response. As a former airline employee, I can tell you that 99% of airlines have no problem interlining bags even though it means "more work" for their employees. For Hawaiian to take this low door out just angers me as a frequent flier and Visa card holder. Their rationale is that if their employees incorrectly tag the bags, it leads to hefty fines. Well, I would guess the solution would be better training for their employees not inconveniencing their customers. I just heard of this when it posted in the paper, but they said they announced earlier. Funny thing is I'm a frequent flier and a visa card holder, and I never heard it earlier. Boooo Hawaiian, wait until they really hear it when it goes into effect. Just ridiculous....
IATA Resolution 302 on interline bagge handleing was bound to work its way into how american legacy carriers operate. They are basically saying that since MSC prevails and makes it a task instead of a service, lets just say no instead of working through it. I not surpised cause they really have no reason to do it. So they can spend their time and money doing you a favor on a ticket they get nothing for, they can just say no which is what HA is doing, or they can start charging for it which I assume will be coming down the road for all US based airlines.
Cheap ticket prices means cheap service. This is one of those you get what you pay for. It should be noted that FIRST CLASS ticket holder who purchased their trip via HA even if on multiple tickets, will still get the service cause they paid for it.
Pacific Flights, With all due respect I respectfully disagree. I am a small business owner myself. We go out of our way to provide outstanding customer service. If I were to tell potential customers that I would not provide a service that all of my competitors were, they would laugh in my face and head out the door to the next guy. With your airline, pacific Wings, being a very small airline I would not expect you to interline my bags, however Hawaiian is a big airline, therefore should keep the same level of service as it's competitors. I worked many, many years for Delta, and interlined thousands of bags. It was a "little more work" maybe all of 15-30 seconds to type the extra info into the computer. But it's pretty much industry standard.
Ahh, but for the "good ol' days". New airline fees is the new industry standard. Different airlines have different fees they are now using or putting in place: pay for checked luggage, pay for carry on luggage, pay to have a seat assignment, pay for window or aisle seat, pay to buy a pass to board early, pay to buy a pass to use their lounge area, pay to have a phone rep make your reservations.
I am not surprised that airlines now don't want to check the luggage that will be handled by another airline later .... what does surprise me is that they have decided to drop that service rather than just making it a "pay" service.
It does allow them to charge another baggage handling fee, so they are getting paid for it. I'd guess it's all about the money these days. Everywhere you look, there's new fees for just about everything.
While it is a money grab for baggage fees - I'd be most concerned about the wait time retrieve my bags from baggage claim - head over to Hawaiian ticketing (not a small hike in HNL from the United baggage claim) - check the bag at Hawaiian - go thru security again - and get to my gate. That 1.5 connection time you may have had in HNL (or even OGG where security gets backed up) might have gone from a lot of cushion to a very tight connection.
While it is a money grab for baggage fees - I'd be most concerned about the wait time retrieve my bags from baggage claim - head over to Hawaiian ticketing (not a small hike in HNL from the United baggage claim) - check the bag at Hawaiian - go thru security again - and get to my gate. That 1.5 connection time you may have had in HNL (or even OGG where security gets backed up) might have gone from a lot of cushion to a very tight connection.
This applys only for segments purchased on seperate tickets, and does not change their existing interline conections with other airlines or continued passage on their airline even if seperate tickets.
So what is a seperate ticket? A seperate ticket is when you are lets say traveling from NYC to Honolulu with a stop over in LA. You buy a cheap ticket from a consolidator online for NYC to LA. That ticket is on United through Priceline. You next shop around and end up buying a ticket from LA to Honolulu directly through Hawaiian airline for that segement. Those are TWO SEPERATE TICKETS. It is not a NYC to Honolulu ticket with a stop in LA, its a single ticket from NYC with a ending location of LA. and a single seperate ticket on Hawaiian with a starting point of LA ending in Honolulu. It is not a codes share ticket, it is not an interline ticket, it is not a combined ticket, IT IS TWO seperate flights with nothing to do with each other on two diferent airline that just so happen to have a ending airport the same as the other ticket's starting airport.
But, all traditional combined tickets will still have the luggage changed over and you do not have to claim it even if on 10 different airlines.
The priceline scenario isn't the common reason to have separate tickets.
I want to go to Maui. Flying on a single ticket the price might be $900 either non-stop or connecting in HNL. Advantage - bags are interlined. Price is expensive.
There are often fare sales direct to Honolulu (except there aren't any right now). Your trip can only terminate in HNL for the sale. So, you buy the $400 ticket roundtrip on United to get the sale price and a separate Hawaiian roundtrip ticket to get you to OGG for lets say $160. Total price: $560. In this secenario you have to pick up your bags in HNL and recheck them. It is very common the single ticket price is much higher than breaking it into separate tickets.
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