Alaska Airlines Stole Hawaiian's Boeing 787s - Which Plane Can Now Replace Its Airbus A330s?

Alaska Airlines’ merger with Hawaiian Airlines leaves Hawaiian with a near-term widebody gap, as Alaska begins deploying Boeing 787s on transpacific routes from Seattle under its own brand. The article says Alaska and Hawaiian are now effectively debating which aircraft could replace Hawaiian’s Airbus A330-200 fleet in the 2030s: the A330neo or Airbus’ Dreamliner rival, the Boeing 787. A330neo integration would be faster for Hawaiian’s existing crew and equipment, but Alaska would need to run two widebody ecosystems. The 787 would unify Alaska’s twin-aisle fleet, though at the cost of re-equipping and retraining Honolulu-based teams, plus payload and range tradeoffs for typical Hawaiian routes. The piece adds that Hawaiian is planned to begin a $600 million A330 cabin overhaul starting in 2028, suggesting A330 operations would continue for at least another decade. It also notes an early test case: on January 7, an Alaska-branded 787-9 replaced a Hawaiian A330-200 on Seattle–Tokyo Narita, marking the first widebody in Alaska livery.