I was born & raised in Hawai'i. Seeing the Honu (turtle) A380s on the tarmac here at HNL is ABSOLUTELY breathtaking!!! Americans have been and continue to be eliminated from opportunities of experiencing the best things available out there. Seeing an A380 on any airport in the US is definitely a treat!!! EXCELLENT decision ANA!!!
Flying to HI with the Honu A380s is the perfect match. ANA got a clear win-win. Perfect route, due to the slots and the livery specially made for this majestic aircraft. The comparison lacks, but Condor has a similar new stripe color scheme on their new A330neo aircraft with 5 different colors.
Currently they operate 2 daily to HNL as NH182/NH184 NRT-HNL and NH181/NH183 HNL-NRT. They rotate 2 days on and one day off or thereabouts per aircraft. These planes are often relatively full (save periods after golden week which is often very slow). Add to that daily Narita service from JAL, HA, and ZipAir, plus NH186 from Haneda, 2 HA flights, 2 JAL flights, and a Delta flight, still the market isn't saturated apparently. Especially as all 11 Tokyo flights arrive within 2.5 hours of each other here in HNL. This is also when most of the other international arrivals land as well.
Maybe Emirates will want to get their hands on those ANA A380s to replace their own A380 which are clocking up flight hours and aren't possible to be replaced one to one?
as a big fan of the A380, i'm glad they decided to take the A380s, sadly as they don't fly to the UK i haven't had the pleasure of seeing them in person but their design is great, i just hope they aren't like Qatar and consider if their biggest mistake
ANA probably took the A380 because Airbus made them a deal they couldn't refuse, on a route full of A330-200 from Hawaiian Air and 787 from many others the A380 does add something special. Today with the low yen Japanese traffic to Hawaii is down and the Hawaii side point of sale is very low compared to the Japan side of this route. I wish they flew it to LAX.
Airbus actually wanted Delta to take over the bankrupt Skymark. This would been a big blow to ANA that an American airline came in and took the slots and could also use Japan as an hub for Skymark and Delta. So Airbus made ANA an offer, take the 3 A380 that they had under production for Skymark and we will put you as our preferred bidder for Skymark
I think this was something that fell together at the right time for ANA, even if it wasn't what they intended. With HNL as Qantas' A380 diversion airport numerous times, and it being a traditionally big market for the Japanese consumer, it made sense. Though i didn't foresee double daily A380s, its working for them and with its cabin configuration also dispelling long held "online armchair ceo" myths regarding not able to make any money or premium fares to Hawaii. I hope to ride these birds my next trip to Asia 🌏
