When booking interisland flights members will simply enter their HawaiianMiles number and Hawaiian will automatically track discounts.  The earning periods for interisland travel are August 3, 2009 to December 31, 2009.  Booking and travel to the mainland using the discounts must be during August 3, 2009 to June 15, 2010.  Qualifying interisland flights must be prior to 10 a.m. and after 2 p.m. in a fare class that is eligible for HawaiianMiles earnings.

For more information visit Hawaiian Airlines website at www.hawaiianair.com.

go! Airlines and Mokulele are merging under Mesa Air Group to form go! Mokulele. This undoubtedly means higher prices for flights between the Hawaiian islands. Yuk! This comes at a time when Maui, Kauai, and The Big Island have all seen huge economic losses, and could mean further losses from those kama’aina that like to travel inter-island on a weekend getaway.

The new airline, only has to compete with Hawaiian Airlines, whose known for having higher priced tickets with it’s larger airplanes and higher carrying capacity. Only time will tell whether or note the price of your flight to Maui will increase, but we think it most likely has to.

For those of you with tickets on either go! or Mokulele, your tickets will still be valid and you can continue to book with either company, which will eventually become one seemless company as the merger continues.

Who will be the next airline to try and take a stab at inter-island travel?

First, here is a brief geography lesson on Samoa.  There are three main islands that make up the Samoan island chain.  The largest island of Tutuila is the main island that makes up the territory of American Samoa.  The other two islands on the left are Savii and Upolu that make up the country of Western Samoa.  Because of the proximity of Samoa to Hawaii (approximately 5 hours away by plane) Hawaii shares many cultural similarities with Hawaii and makes Samoa a popular destination for Hawaii residents.  Hawaii residents may travel to Samoa to visit their families or simply for a vacation.

On my recent trip to Western Samoa I traveled on a full flight on Hawaiian Airlines over to American Samoa landing in the city Pago Pago.  I then took a small prop plane to over to Western Samoa to the city of Apia.  There are currently no flights directly to and from Honolulu to Western Samoa.  Hawaiian Airlines is the only airline that currently flies to and from Samoa from Honolulu.   There are only two flights a week on Sundays and Thursdays, so the flights tend to be packed with people.

Air Pacific, Fiji’s international airline will be offering direct flights from Honolulu to Apia starting September 11, 2009.  The flight will operate on a Boeing 737-800 aircraft with direct flights once a week on Fridays.  This will help Samoans have a more convenient access to Honolulu and the mainland United States.  Residents or visitors to Western Samoa coming from Honolulu will no longer have to take the small prop plane to and from Pago Pago.  For more flight information visit www.airpacific.com.

To get this fare you must book your travel from now to February 28 and travel between February 1st thru 28th.  Fare rates are based on availability and some restrictions may apply, so check the airlines details via their websites… Hawaiian airlines: www.hawaiianair.com , Go! Airlines: www.iflygo.com , and Mokulele Airlines: www.mokuleleairlines.com.

Shortly after Aloha Airlines closed it’s doors both Hawaiian and go! raised their prices and left many people angry. A ticket on go! quickly went from $39 to $49 and didn’t show signs of slowing down. Then go! airlines lost a suit which made them own Hawaiian $52 billion and ticket prices went even higher, for both companies.

Now, as I write this, ticket prices on go! airlines, the discount interisland airline, sits at $61 one way for select flights. Most flights are even more than that, especially if you want to travel on peak times. Tickets prices for round trip have been seen for well over $150.

However, with gas prices falling in Hawaii and worldwide due to decreased demand, we may see interisland air fares come down with them. I’ve already noticed a decrease in ticket prices to the mainland with west cost tickets peaking at $1000 already retreat to half the price. Hopefully tickets between the islands will do the same.

This news of fare increases is coming on the heels of news that Mesa Airlines, the parent company of the low fare competitor of interisland flights go! airlines, will pay Hawaiian Airlines $52.5 million. This was from the settlement last year that claimed that Mesa used confidential information to enter the market of interisland travel when it was thinking about helping Hawaiian out a few years back.

These prices are for off-peak flights and don’t include increase to peak flights, which I think everyone can agree have slowly been going up. It will be interesting to see how go! reacts to the news and if they can survive after having to pay Hawaiian. The fact that Aloha Airlines is closed may help the two airlines stay in business but Mesa is having it’s own troubles losing contracts with companies like Delta on mainland based flights.

Only time will tell if we’re to continue to see price increases and eventually have to pay more than we should on interisland flights. Maybe these companies should hang out with the CEO of southwest and see how they offer such cheap flights. (Although $54 one way isn’t too bad either.)

This could mean the price of interisland flights will increase back to pre-go! days. If that’s so, which Hawaiian Airlines CEO has said will happen to interisland flight prices that could mean good news for the Hawaii Superferry depending on how it’s travel schedule pans out. Either way, cheap flights may be a thing of the past if this ruling holds.

Mesa has yet to comment on how the ruling will affect go! Airlines inter-island travel.

The quotes came from Hawaiian Airlines top dog, CEO and President Mark Dunkerley as he explained to a backruptcy judge what would happen if go! airlines were to leave interisland travel. The article states that he says his “company would return to pricing air tickets reasonably to cover the actual costs of transportation.”

Now we don’t know how much the increase would be but we would imagine our days of $19 flights, just announced this morning would be long gone.

The news comes as go! airlines battles it’s lawsuit from Hawaiian Airlines which could cost Mesa Air (go!’s parent company) $173 million and bar them from selling tickets in the islands for one year.

Who knows what will happen but it sounds like you should think about getting your interisland travel in soon.

go! airlines and Hawaiian airlines are offering one-way interisland flights for $19. You have to fly between now and November 30th and you must purchase your ticket by 11:59 pm tonight.

Get em fast because probably by the time I’m done typing this half of the flights will be gone.

The only catch is that the flight must occur by the end of the year. 3 airlines, 4 more months? That’s a lot of flights to choose from and it appears they’re going to be offering a lot of flights open to this new value (although that usually is never the case so we won’t hold our breath over here.)