Hawaiian Airlines

Is Hawaiian Airlines safe?

Yes. Hawaiian has no fatal accident and no written-off aircraft in the Aviation Safety Network's records, and it has been flying since 1929. Few airlines anywhere can match that. We score it 87, a little above its new owner Alaska Airlines at 84. The deductions are for an older fleet and for a turbulence event in 2022 that investigators traced to a crew decision.

Hawaiian and Alaska: one airline, two brands

Alaska Air Group completed its purchase of Hawaiian in September 2024. On 29 October 2025, the FAA issued a single operating certificate, the legal step that makes them one airline. Since then, pilots on Hawaiian aircraft use the callsign "Alaska", and both brands follow the same manuals, training standards and safety management system.

On 22 April 2026, the two moved to one booking system, and every Hawaiian flight now carries an AS flight number. The Hawaiian name, its Pualani tail and its cabin service remain on the A321neos, A330s and Boeing 717s. The five Boeing 787s that Hawaiian received have been repainted in Alaska colours and now fly long-haul routes from Seattle.

For a passenger, the brand on the tail matters less than the certificate. Hawaiian-branded flights and Alaska-branded flights now share one safety system and one FAA oversight team. We keep a separate page because Hawaiian's history, fleet and routes are different.

The turbulence on HA35

The most serious recent event happened on 18 December 2022. HA35, an A330 from Phoenix to Honolulu with 293 people on board, flew into a cloud that rose straight up in front of it near Maui, about 40 minutes before landing. The aircraft was thrown up and down hard enough to injure people who were not belted in. The NTSB counted 24 injured, four seriously.

The NTSB's final report in December 2024 found that the crew had enough weather information but decided to fly over a storm cell rather than around it, and did not expect how violent the turbulence would be. It noted that weather radar cannot detect such clouds well at high altitude. Hawaiian said it trains crews regularly on weather avoidance and reviewed the event internally.

Other events

• Tail strikesTail strikeWhen the tail of an aircraft touches the runway during take-off or landing, usually because the nose was raised too far or too early.More in the glossary: A321neos touched their tails on the runway landing at Los Angeles in August 2018 and Honolulu in September 2021. Both aircraft were repaired. The NTSB tied the 2018 event to a bounced landing after a ground proximity warning system failure.
• March 2025: an A330 leaving Auckland for Honolulu returned when its landing gear did not retract, and everyone left normally.
• June 2025: Hawaiian reported a cyberattack on some IT systems. Flights kept operating normally.

None of these involved deaths, and only HA35 caused serious injuries.

An ageing island fleet

Hawaiian's inter-island network runs on 19 Boeing 717s averaging 23.7 years, according to Alaska Air Group's 10-K. The 717 has a good record worldwide, but it is an older design without fly-by-wireFly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary, and each aircraft flies many short legs a day, which adds wear. The 24 Airbus A330-200s for the mainland and Asia-Pacific average 12.5 years, and the 18 A321neos for the West Coast 7 years.

Flying across the Pacific

Honolulu is more than 2,000 miles from the US West Coast with nothing in between. Twin-engine aircraft on these routes must meet extended-range (ETOPS) rules on engines, maintenance and diversion planning. These rules are why long overwater twin-engine flying has a good safety record, but they also mean that a medical or technical problem mid-ocean can mean a long wait to land.

How to fly Hawaiian safely

• Keep your seat belt fastened at all times when seated. On HA35, the people hurt were those not wearing one.
• On inter-island hops, sit and buckle up early. The 717 flights are short and trade-wind turbulence is common on approach.
• Check your booking shows AS numbers if you booked recently; old HA numbers on a third-party site can cause confusion on the day.

How we scored it

The accident record (96), with no fatal accident or lost aircraft since 1929, carries the score. Oversight (89) is shared with Alaska under one certificate. The fleet (70) loses points for the 717s, and incidents (80) for HA35 and the tail strikesTail strikeWhen the tail of an aircraft touches the runway during take-off or landing, usually because the nose was raised too far or too early.More in the glossary. Compare Qantas, another long-haul airline with no jet ever lost.