Hawaii
Hawaii Traveler Just Found This 186% Hawaiian Airlines Fee Hike
A reader booking a Hawaii flight just found and wrote to us about one fee that nearly tripled this week, from $35 to $100. But the bigger story is what else readers are finding at booking and onboard, from fees to meals, as Hawaiian’s old terms get replaced with ones the new airline can actually afford to keep.
This $35 fee just became $100.
Hawaiian’s longtime interisland cabin pet fee was $35, a price well below the rest of the airline industry. The cabin pet fee is now $100, whether flying interisland or between Hawaii and the mainland. Checked pets on interisland flights are listed at $60, so even that option now costs more than the old cabin fee many residents and repeat visitors knew. Moving from $35 to $100 is a 186% increase, and a quick interisland roundtrip with a pet now costs $130 more.
The new fee is closer to what mainland carriers already charge for pets in the cabin, where $100 to $150 has long been common. That doesn’t make the increase easier for longtime Hawaii travelers who booked expecting the old Hawaiian price, which was unusually low when measured against the larger airline system Alaska brought with it.
The reader who found out at booking.
One reader put it plainly after finding the new price while trying to make a pet reservation. The frustration was not just the dollar amount. It was the timing, the lack of warning, and another familiar Hawaiian practice that pulled the rug out from under travelers still assuming the old rules applied.
“Alaska is not better in another way. Today I discovered that taking a pet on an inter island flight is now $100 as opposed to $35 with Hawaiian. Had I made my pet reservation just 2 days ago I would have saved $65 per way. Outrageous! This is not in the spirit of Aloha.”
For a traveler making a short island hop, the pet fee can now approach or exceed the passenger fare itself, depending on route, timing, and when the ticket was booked.
The meal that still isn’t.
The pet fee is one data point, and meals are another. Readers are describing gaps between what they expected from Hawaiian and what they received on flights, part of a longer pattern of small Hawaiian touches changing, being repriced, reduced, or still unclear during this week’s transition.
One reader booked a mainland flight under the Hawaiian name and reported the meal didn’t match what was promised.
“I just flew on a ‘Hawaiian’ flight from Hawaii to the mainland and having doubts about service changes, I checked 2 weeks, and then 72 hours in advance to pre-order a meal in premier class seating. It stated meals for that flight were complimentary but we got a bag of snack mix only. It is disappointing to experience these inconsistent changes among the Alaska takeover.”
Comments we have received at Beat of Hawaii say that complimentary meals are still being phased out. Readers are reporting, and employee accounts are pointing in the same direction. Food that once defined Hawaiian’s mainland and long-haul service is being reduced, reworked, or shifted. Alaska sent us a different message this week when we wrote about Hawaiian Air meal service:
“There are no changes to our complimentary meal service in our main cabins. During our PSS transition, several dual‑brand content updates were made to our webpages, and the link referenced in your post was unintentionally directing to an Alaska Airlines pre‑order page. We’re working to correct that now.
Two days later, however, there’s no sign on Hawaiian’s own food page of what complimentary meals in economy still exist. The page only refers to business class meals.
A reader says what BOH has been reporting.
One longtime BOH reader put it in harsher terms than we would have chosen. The loss did not begin on one date. It came through smaller moves, thinner service, and a pricing model that kept asking the question of whether the old Hawaiian Air experience could survive as a standalone airline model.
“I am having trouble understanding why people are mourning the loss of Hawaiian Airlines. It died years ago making incremental changes to their image and service. Flying Hawaiian airlines in their heyday was a special experience. But, like many other things in life right now, there’s little left of what we once knew.”
The old Hawaiian experience had been fading long before Alaska took control, even while many travelers still hoped the brand, the food, the service style, and the Hawaii-specific aspects they still remember fondly would remain intact. Alaska did not create the problems Hawaii travelers are feeling, but the acquisition is forcing the pricing and service reset into public view in a big way. The $35 pet fee moving to $100 is just another example.
The longhaul issues also come into focus.
One reader just described a much 10,000 mile trip on Hawaiian this week, where the food issue became harder to understand because of the route length and total travel time.
“I just got off a 9hr flight from Sydney Australia. We had a light meal on that flight…. a 3hr stop over and now am on a 9-10hr flight to JFK and now I have to purchase food and drinks. Absolutely pathetic for such a long flight.”
The undoubtedly soon to be resolved pattern has three points: an interisland fee increase, a premier-class meal gap, and a long-haul food complaint. Travelers are bringing old Hawaiian expectations into a new system where fees, meals, and what’s included are being reset.
We’ve experienced this ourselves in countless mileage upgrades from economy to business/first class on Hawaiian flights. These were offered at pricing too low to be sustainable, and compared with the rest of the industry. Those cheap mileage upgrades are now gone.
That kind of value built loyalty. But it also created an obvious question for any acquiring airline. Cheap fees, too generous upgrades, included meals, and other unique offerings helped Hawaiian feel different. They also left Hawaiian in terrible financial straits. And they leave Alaska with plenty of places where the larger airline can raise, remove, or reprice things.
Why the old Hawaiian couldn’t last.
For longtime Hawaiian travelers, this part is still uncomfortable. Many of the things people loved were real, but they were priced in a way that was hard to defend commercially once Hawaiian was no longer standing by itself. A bigger carrier absorbs a smaller one and necessarily looks for alignment. The cheaper system moves toward the more expensive one, and not the other way around.
Hawaiian’s “Aloha discount” is what the merger ended. The brand still appears, the Pualani paint job remains, and the word Hawaiian still carries deep meaning for many travelers. But the pricing system underneath is changing. That is how the pet fee increase connects to the meal complaints, the upgrade math, and more.
Hawaiian’s standalone pricing was not sustainable, and that reality is part of what made the acquisition necessary. Travelers can be angry about the loss and still see why the old setup wasn’t going to survive once a larger airline took over.
What to expect.
Don’t assume legacy Hawaiian terms still apply just because the flight is to, from, or within Hawaii. Check at booking, especially pets, bags, seats, food, and upgrade options. Check again too before departure, because readers are already finding gaps between what they expected, what they saw online, and what they report happened onboard.
For meals on mainland and long-haul flights, don’t rely on memory from past Hawaiian trips. Look closely at what is included, what must be pre-ordered, and what may now be sold onboard. If the site and the airline say one thing and the cabin delivers another, that’s the gap readers are now reporting.
Have you booked a Hawaii flight, interisland or mainland, since the merger took hold? What did you expect based on past Hawaiian service, and what did you actually get?
Get Breaking Hawaii Travel News
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The man accused of stabbing a teen in Kalihi on Monday is now being held on $100,000 bail.
44-year-old Jerold Matthews is charged with first-degree assault.
Patrol officers responded at around 10:40 p.m. to the Rose Street area.
Police say he stabbed a 17-year-old boy after the teen intervened during an argument between the man and the teen’s mom.
The teen was taken to a hospital in serious condition.
The 17-year-old was also arrested on allegations that he assaulted the Emergency Services Worker who was helping him, but he was released pending investigation.
Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
Hawaii
Emails show FBI Director Kash Patel’s Hawaii trip included ‘VIP snorkel’ at a Pearl Harbor memorial
WASHINGTON — When Kash Patel visited Hawaii last summer, the FBI took pains to note the director was not on vacation, highlighting his walking tour of the bureau’s Honolulu field office and meetings with local law enforcement.
Left out of the FBI’s news releases was an exclusive excursion that Patel took days later when he participated in what government officials described as a “VIP snorkel” around the USS Arizona in an outing coordinated by the military. The sunken battleship entombs more than 900 sailors and Marines at Pearl Harbor.
The swim, revealed in government emails obtained by The Associated Press, comes to light amid criticism of Patel’s use of the FBI plane and his global travel, which have blurred professional responsibilities with leisure activities. The FBI did not disclose the snorkeling session or that Patel had returned to Hawaii for two days after his initial stopover on the island.
“It fits a pattern of Director Patel getting tangled up in unseemly distractions — this time at a site commemorating the second deadliest attack in U.S. history — instead of staying laser-focused on keeping Americans safe,” said Stacey Young, who founded Justice Connection, a network of former federal prosecutors and agents who advocate for the Department of Justice’s independence.
With few exceptions, snorkeling and diving are off-limits around the USS Arizona. The battleship, now a military cemetery reachable only by boat, has stood as one of the nation’s most hallowed sites since Japan bombed and sank it in 1941. Marine archaeologists and crews from the National Park Service make occasional dives at the memorial to survey the condition of the wreck. Other dives have been conducted to inter the remains of Arizona survivors who wanted to rest eternally with their former shipmates.
Still, since at least the Obama administration, the Navy and the park service have quietly allowed a handful of dignitaries, including military and government officials responsible for management of the memorial, to swim at the site. The Navy and park service declined to provide details of those permitted to take such excursions.
Former FBI directors have visited Pearl Harbor on official business, but none going back to at least 1993 has gone snorkeling at the memorial, according to those familiar with their activities and a former government diver who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. The diver said it was unusual for a director or anyone not connected to the memorial to be granted such access because the swims come with physical risks and present security, safety and logistical challenges.
Patel has faced scrutiny over his leadership for the past year, with his use of government resources emerging as a recurring storyline of his tenure. The issue flared in February when video surfaced of Patel partying in the locker room with members of the U.S. men’s hockey team after their gold medal win at the Winter Olympics in Milan. Patel defended the trip as recently as this week as “purposely planned” in connection with a cybercrime investigation involving the Italian authorities.
Unanswered questions about exclusive outing
Patel’s excursion was in August as he spent two days in Hawaii on his return to the United States from official visits to Australia and New Zealand. On his way to those countries, he stopped in Hawaii to visit the Honolulu field office. An FBI spokesman did not answer questions about the snorkeling session.
The FBI said in a statement that top regional commanders hosted Patel at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam “as they commonly do with US government officials on official travel.” The Pearl Harbor visit, the spokesman said, “was part of the Director’s public national security engagements last August with counterparts in New Zealand, Australia, our Honolulu Field Office, and the Department of War.”
It was not clear how Patel’s snorkeling session was arranged. A Navy spokesperson, Capt. Jodie Cornell, confirmed the outing but said the service was not able to track down who initiated it.
Participants in Patel’s swim were told “not to touch/come into contact with” the sunken ship in any way, Cornell said. She added that the snorkelers were also briefed about “the historic significance of the Memorial as the final resting place/tomb for hundreds of service members.”
A ‘VIP Snorkel’
Government emails obtained by the AP through a public records request show military officials coordinated logistics and personnel for the “VIP Snorkel.”
The National Park Service, which administers the site in coordination with the Navy, told AP it was not involved in Patel’s swim and declined to comment on the excursion. It also declined to answer questions about any other such outings.
Among those afforded invitations to snorkel have been Navy admirals, secretaries of defense and interior, according to the former government diver. The diver added that the swims were intended to provide officials with insights into the memorial and its operations.
The Navy declined to provide examples or numbers showing how frequently it organizes such excursions. It described Patel’s outing as “not an anomaly.”
Hack Albertson, a Marine veteran, is part of a select group from the Paralyzed Veterans of America trained to dive on the Arizona annually to check on the condition of the wreck. He said it was inappropriate for Patel and other political figures to snorkel or dive at the memorial.
“It’s like having a bachelor party at a church. It’s hallowed ground,” he said. ”It needs to be treated with the solemnity it deserves.”
Some family members don’t object to snorkeling
Some family members of Pearl Harbor survivors said they were not bothered by such official excursions, though some expressed a desire to also be permitted to snorkel at the site. They said they have not been permitted to do so.
“I have not heard of anyone who would object to these visits as they are very rare and there aren’t any survivors of the Arizona left alive,” Deidre Kelley, national president of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors, wrote in an email. “Their children might have some objections but I haven’t heard any.”
Patel visited Pearl Harbor several years ago during a trip he made to Hawaii while serving as chief of staff to Christopher Miller, then the acting secretary of defense, according to the former government diver.
Miller said he snorkeled over the Arizona during an official visit to the base, but Patel was not present for that excursion. Miller said he was invited to snorkel by regional military officials and was told such a tour was for “special occasions and for special visitors, of which you’re one.” He called it a “meaningful” experience.
“It was a very somber and meaningful event,” Miller said in an interview. “It was a historical tour. It wasn’t a recreational thing.”
FBI will not discuss Patel’s return to Hawaii
Beyond the snorkeling excursion, it is not clear what else Patel did during his second stop in Hawaii.
Flight tracking data for the Gulfstream G550 typically used by the FBI director show the jet remained on the island two nights during that stay before flying on to Las Vegas, Patel’s adopted hometown. The jet has a published range of about 7,700 miles, meaning the plane would have needed to refuel somewhere between New Zealand and Washington.
The snorkeling session happened one day after Patel stopped in Wellington to open the FBI’s first standalone office in New Zealand. The visit sparked controversy after the AP revealed that Patel had gifted that country’s police and spy bosses inoperable 3D-printed replica pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws.
__
Mustian reported from New York. Associated Press writers Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.
-
Los Angeles, Ca5 minutes agoRip tides, high surf forecast for Los Angeles beaches this weekend
-
Detroit, MI29 minutes agoWhat time is Pistons Game 7 vs Cavs? Date, tickets in Detroit
-
San Francisco, CA41 minutes agoSan Francisco prepares for Bay to Breakers run
-
Dallas, TX47 minutes agoSouthwest lays off about 75 employees in latest restructuring move
-
Miami, FL52 minutes agoMark Matthews Announces Commitment – Chooses Between Georgia, Miami, and Others
-
Boston, MA59 minutes agoAliyah Boston Leaves Fever Game With Lower Leg Injury
-
Denver, CO1 hour agoNorthbound I-25 closed between Denver and Colorado Springs after fatal multi-vehicle crash
-
Seattle, WA1 hour agoHealth officials track fourth King County resident tied to MV Hondius Andes hantavirus