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?
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