Delta quietly posted on its airline companion web page that its loyalty partnership with Hawaiian Airways will probably be ending on June 30. That is no shock, however it might seemingly put slightly gap in Deltaʻs community. Or does it? Interisland partnerships donʻt matter practically as a lot as they used to, and I ended up deep within the weeds taking a look at how this market want has shifted over time. How deep? Nicely, that is going to be a two-parter.
At the moment, Delta vacationers can earn each redeemable and elite qualifying (MQDs) SkyMiles on Hawaiian interisland flights. They’ll additionally use SkyMiles to redeem for interisland journey. The third unrelated a part of it is a codeshare the place Delta places flight numbers on Hawaiian’s interisland flights.
Hawaiian has lengthy been the conduit for airways to get higher service within the islands to connect with their mainland flights. The large three US carriers haven’t operated interisland for the reason that early 2000s. As soon as Aloha went away in 2008, that left Hawaiian as the one vital operator, and it was comfortable to take everybody’s feed. American, Delta, and United all have relationships with Hawaiian right this moment. American’s ties will strengthen since Hawaiian’s new proprietor Alaska will not be solely part of oneworld but additionally in a tighter relationship with American. However Delta will go in the other way.
As soon as Hawaiian bought Alaska Alaska bought Hawaiian, the writing was on the wall for the Delta relationship to finish, or at the least be scaled again. In spite of everything, Alaska did promise to maintain interline agreements with present companions with a purpose to sway the federal government to not problem the merger. Alternatively, Alaska and Delta have been locked in a fierce rivarly in Seattle for greater than a decade, and there was no approach that Alaska would wish to assist its former good friend if it may keep away from it. Now, modifications are coming.
So what is going to occur? A Delta spokesperson says that “simply the mileage accrual piece” will finish, although it’s clear on the web site that mileage redemption additionally goes away. Within the unwinding course of, solely tickets booked earlier than June 30 and flown earlier than April 1, 2026 will earn miles. Award redemptions could be booked by June 30, however they canʻt be modified after that date. (They are often canceled and refunded although.) The codeshare will proceed for now, which ought to imply that folks will nonetheless earn miles on these Hawaiian-operated flights booked with a DL code, at the least for now.
This creates a really bizarre relationship. How typically have you ever seen an airline have a codeshare partnership however no loyalty settlement for flights marketed by the companion airline? It wouldn’t shock me in some unspecified time in the future to see this flip right into a pure interline association, or no matter is required by the settlement with the federal government.
What else can Delta do? Not a lot. The one different airline flying interisland is Southwest. It’s now slowly gaining the power to interline, so possibly that’s a chance in concept. However the frequency is way much less, plus… Delta and Southwest usually are not precisely finest pals both. Moreover, Southwest would most likely fairly focus is interline discussions on these worldwide companions that present extra worth. Delta could be out of choices.
Then once more, maybe this doesn’t actually matter a lot to Delta anyway. Does interisland not matter anymore now that there are extra flights from the mainland to the neighbor islands? In spite of everything, it was once that almost the whole lot routed through Honolulu after which fanned out to the Neighbor Islands. Now, there are plentiful nonstop to the mainland from the three different principal islands. Simply have a look at this chart detailing the rise of flying outdoors Honolulu.
Seats from US Mainland to Hawaiʻi
T-100 Knowledge through Cirium
I requested Delta hoping to get some extra shade right here. I had desires of an in-depth dialogue, however as an alternative all I obtained was:
We don’t have something further to share presently, however respect you reaching out.
Nicely, okay then.
So, I pulled up Cirium information and began on the lookout for solutions within the information. I’ll share all of that with you in tomorrow’s put up.
