Probably the second most popular carrier flying people between the Hawaiian islands is Island Air. We used this airline to get from Maui back to Oahu so that we could fly out of Honolulu and on to Seattle. The Island Air plane was small compared to Hawaiian Airlines, as it was only 4 seats across and 17 rows back while the latter was 6 across and 32 back. The plane size did contribute to a much bumpier ride because it didn’t cope with turbulence as well.
When we were on the tarmac about to board the plane, I looked at my ticket to see where we were sitting, but couldn’t find a seat number. Searching fervently, as we had just boarded the plane, I still didn’t know where we were going. In my panic, I accidentally interrupted the flight attendant mid-announcement, who glaring at me, finished his speech over the microphone and told me there was no seat allocation. Confused, we started walked down the aisle until I saw a lady at the front directing people to specific seats. Xave and I were lucky, we ended up sitting next to each other in row 2, however I can imagine this system would leave late-comers sitting separate from their travel buddies.
Similar to our Hawaiian Airlines experience the flight was quite short (the seat belt sign didn’t even turn off) however the attendants still had time to whip around handing out a cup of juice or bottle of water. One difference, between the two airlines, which I’m not sure is due to the individual pilot (who was a very chirpy bloke) or the size of the plane (small and personable) or a combination of both, but I felt like we were on a sight-seeing tour. As we were nearing Oahu the captain pointed out different landmarks to us and gave us a bit of background on each one, such as why Diamond Head has it’s name (early explorers sailing past the island saw the calcite crystals shining and mistakenly took them for diamonds) and showed us the former holiday house of the Royal family.
Our flight details:
1st June 2014
Maui to Honolulu
USD $84 incl. taxes but ex. luggage
41mins
Every Country 