Southwest Airlines shifting strategy, reducing Hawai‘i flights in 2025

Southwest Airlines plans some major changes to its Hawai‘i services starting next spring, shifting its strategy and reducing interisland flights by as much as 30%.

Hawai‘i travel website Beat of Hawai‘i reports that beginning April 8, 2025, Southwest will cut its Honolulu to Maui route — one of the busiest and most trafficked in the nation — from 11 flights to 8 per day.

Other key interisland routes such as Honolulu to Kona on the Big Island and Honolulu to Līhuʻe on Kaua‘i also will be cut from 6 to 5 flights a day.

The airline’s route from Honolulu to Hilo on the Big Island will remain unchanged at 3 daily flights, as will the Līhuʻe to Maui route with 1 flight per day.

Southwest will also reshape its services between the mainland and Hawai‘i next year, putting a focus more on key markets such as Las Vegas and San Jose, Calif.

Las Vegas to Honolulu flights will increase starting June 5, 2025, from 2 to 3 per day. Maui to San Jose flights will also see a spike from 2 times a week to 5.

The airline will cut back on lower-performing routes.

Los Angeles to Kona flights will decrease during the summer of 2025 from 5 to 2 a week, with the Sacramento, Calif., to Kona route reintroduced as a seasonal daily service. Kona to Oakland, Calif., flights will likely be eliminated completely.

Honolulu to Oakland flights will be slashed from 2 to 1 per day, or cut altogether. The Maui to Long Beach, Calif., route will be slashed for good.

“For travelers, these adjustments mean less availability for interisland flights and the distinct potential for price increases as competition decreases,” said Beat of Hawai‘i in its article. “Meanwhile, as Las Vegas and San Jose become increasingly important in the Southwest network for mainland to Hawai‘i visitors, more options and connections will be forthcoming.”

The travel website said the changes signal the airline is far from settling into a steady role in Hawai‘i.

“Southwest’s initial Hawai‘i strategy was highly ambitious, even for them, targeting both mainland and interisland markets,” it said. “However, the realities of operating in Hawai‘i, including high costs, competitive pressures and unique culture, appear to have prompted this latest recalibration.”

Southwest entered the interisland market in 2019, bringing lower fares and competition against Hawaiian Airlines, which then controlled the skies over the islands.

But high costs and complexity of operating interisland routes, failure to engage in popularity and simply evolving travel patterns might have combined to make Southwest’s ambitions unsustainable.

With these cuts, Southwest’s Hawai‘i operations increasingly focus on solid mainland connections rather than competing head-to-head in the interisland market with Hawaiian.

Hawaiian, with its dedicated interisland fleet, strong market share and ownership under the wings of behemoth Alaska Airlines — which combined the two airlines operate about half of all Hawai’i flights — now stands poised to benefit as Southwest adjusts its island focus.

Southwest once sought to disrupt Hawai‘i’s interisland market along with mainland flights.

These reductions, however, mark a clear retreat, leaving Hawaiian as the apparent winner while Southwest reduces its presence and seems to be leaning into its clear strengths, focusing on direct flights from mainland focus cities.

Southwest’s future in Hawai‘i is in key markets such as Las Vegas and San Jose.

Beat of Hawai‘i predicted that those cities would become pivotal hubs for connecting island travelers more often and with new routes. Other routes are being scaled back or cut because of shifting demand and operational priorities.

“This shift in mainland-to-Hawai‘i flights in some ways mirrors the strategy that has long worked for Alaska Airlines, emphasizing direct-to-island routes,” the travel website said. “Maintaining a robust interisland network has proven unsustainable for Southwest, and even its own investors noted the need for a culling after failing to engage effectively.”

The upcoming cuts also likely won’t be the last changes Southwest makes in Hawai‘i.

For now, however, the airline’s strategy in the islands appears to be shifting toward a combination of sustainability and profitability while leaving behind some of its earlier “shark-like” ambitions.

Find more about the Southwest route changes here.