Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines have announced an agreement to combine the airlines, with Alaska Airlines set to acquire Hawaiian Airlines. While the two boards have approved the transaction, the deal is subject to regulatory approval in the US.
Based on the announcement, the two airline brands will continue to exist, but operate under a ‘single platform’. That said, Honolulu is set to become a ‘key hub’ for Alaska Airlines with expanded services to Hawaii.
OneWorld Alliance
One question that comes up for Frequent Flyers is about OneWorld membership. At present, while Alaska Airlines in a OneWorld Alliance member, Hawaiian is not. Indeed, they operate separate loyalty programs.
Under the new entity, the two airlines will operate “a single, compelling loyalty offering”. According to the press release:
The transaction will connect Hawaiian Airlines’ loyalty members with enhanced benefits through an industry-leading loyalty program for the combined airline, including the ability to earn and redeem miles on 29 global partners and receive elite benefits on the full complement of oneworld Alliance airlines, expanded global lounge access and benefits of the combined program’s co-brand credit card.
I take this to mean that the current Hawaiian Miles program will be subsumed by the Alaska Air Miles program. Effectively, Hawaiian Airlines would become part of the oneWorld alliance.
While they have not detailed exactly how this would work, we can look to the AirFrance-KLM tie-up for reference. The two airlines have kept their own identities, share a frequent flyer program, and are both members of SkyTeam.
The Combine Network
The benefits that the airlines see for the proposal are that it will see two highly complementary networks combined. The following diagram shows the way that the two networks currently operate.
As can be seen, the two networks have little overlap. Indeed, less than 3% of the routes are operated by both carriers.
The combined network will consist of 365 aircraft, operating 1,340 departures per day.