Hawaiian Holdings, the parent company of Hawaiian Airlines recently held its Q2 2021 earnings call. The results indicate that although the company has reported a net loss of $6.2 million, it is in a far better position than anticipated largely driven by strong demand from US mainland routes. Nevertheless, the results lag behind Q2 2019 net profit of $57.8 million, which followed last year’s net loss of $106.9 million.

The carrier saw total revenues of $410.8 million, a 42% decrease compared to Q2 2019 whilst capacity was down 30%, largely due to the lack of international traffic from travel restrictions.

Routes and Network

During the second quarter of 2021, Hawaiian largely rebuilt its network to mainland United States. Within the month of June alone, the carrier saw traffic number exceed those of June 2019. “We made meaningful strides towards recovery during the second quarter, propelled by continued strong demand on our US mainland routes,” said Peter Ingram, chief executive officer.  A positive sign of recovery as the region represents the largest market for the carrier. Meanwhile, Neighbour Island operations have begun to recover inch closer to pre-pandemic levels.

On the other than international passenger volumes remain low. Recovery within this market will likely begin towards the end of 2021 with both the Japanese and Korean first. Specifically, for the Japanese recovery is predicted to start once the Olympics and Paralympics have finished. While the Australian and New Zealand will not begin recovery until next year. In the second quarter of 2021, the carrier operated 70% of its 2019 Q2 capacity with North America operating at 97% capacity, Neighbour Island operations at 57% capacity and international routes operating at 11% capacity.

In April 2021 the airline launched a twice-weekly service from its hub in Honolulu to Austin, Texas increasing the service to trice weekly for summer 2021. Similarly, in May 2021 four times weekly service from Maui, Hawaii to Phoenix was launched.

Capacity increases can be attributed to the ease of COVID-19 testing and quarantine restrictions from the positive change the State of Hawaii made to its Safe Travels program including:

• All travel restrictions between the Hawaiian Islands were lifted on the 15^th of June.
• People travelling into the state with proof of vaccination within the US could bypass COVID-19 testing and quarantine restrictions with proof of vaccination.

The State has further announced that the Safe Travels Program will end once 70% of the residents on the island are fully vaccinated.

Hawaiian Airlines expects to continue building its network in Q3 2021, focussing on mainland US and Neighbour Island operations. The airline predicts its earnings before taxes (EBIDTA) to fluctuate between $20 million and $20 million. While total revenues are expected to be 28% to 33% lower than Q3 2019 levels with capacity down by 20-33%.