Hawaiian Airlines has underlined its commitment to expanding its local presence as it reported a strong performance from its Australian network in recent years.
Speaking to Travel Today during a recent visit to Sydney, chief executive Mark Dunkerley described Australia as a “very successful” part of the carrier’s network.
“We’ve been able to grow our presence here quite dramatically,” he said. Hawaiian now operates a daily service out of Sydney, with a seasonal second daily flight also in place. Meanwhile, it added Brisbane to its network in December 2012 with the service rising to four times weekly and longer term plans to bump it up to daily.
“So it’s all gone very well for us,” Dunkerley said. “More generally for Australia, we are always on the lookout for opportunities to grow and expand.
“We’re watching the market closely and hope to be able to expand both in terms of the number of frequencies to communities that we serve today, and further afield to see if we can increase the number of cities that we serve.”
While Dunkerley acknowledged growing competition on the route, particularly from the low cost segment, he stressed that competition is a “fact of life” for the carrier.
“Frankly we like our combination of product on board, our cost base for delivering that product and as we look around world, including here in Australia, we wouldn’t trade places with anybody that we compete with,” he said.
Strong support from the local travel trade is a key component of the airline’s success in Australia, according to Dunkerley.
“Part of our ethos and way we approach markets that we work with market and way that market exists in the places we go to,” he said.
“Here in Australia that means working very heavily with the trade – we have terrific relationships across the breadth of trade and are wonderfully supported by a great number of agencies here.”
The airline regularly meets with its trade partners to assess objectives and ensure goals are a win-win for both parties, he revealed.
And while a distribution shift has been noticed, it is “certainly not seismic”, Dunkerley stressed.
“We very much follow developments rather than lead them, given the nature of who we are and the places that we serve.”
