Hawaiian Airlines locks in A330 business class suites

Hawaiian Airlines will upgrade its Airbus A330s with modern lie-flat business class suites featuring privacy doors and direct aisle access, while also adding an all-new premium economy cabin and state-of-the-art inflight entertainment system into the workhorse jets.

And while this tip-to-tail refit won’t begin until 2028, the airline is aiming to have all two dozen A330s done within an ambitious 12-month period.

“We’ll start at the beginning of 2028, and by sometime in the back half of the year we’ll be done,” CEO Diana Birkett Rakow told Executive Traveller ahead of the airline joining the Oneworld alliance on April 22.

“We’ve got a long time to plan, which means we get all the partners lined up, we get the designs lined up, we get the supply chain lined up and then it’s really just scheduling airplanes to go through.”

Having chosen the manufacturers of its new suites and seats, “the team that’s working on it is the same team that worked on the Dreamliner,” ahead of an official reveal later this year.

Hawaiian's 787 business class provides hints of what to expect on the A330.

“We really want to hit the same high-quality standard that we have on the 787s.”

“The revenue that we’re getting from our existing premium cabins is growing as a percentage of our total revenue,” Birkett Rakow added.

Those Boeing 787s have since been transferred to new owner Alaska Airlines, following its US$1.9bn buyout of the Honolulu-based airline in 2024.

Dressed in a striking livery inspired by the Northern Lights, the Seattle-based Dreamliners will become Alaska’s long-range fleet for flights to Asia, Europe and potentially Australia.

Alaska Airlines is taking over Hawaiian's Boeing 787 jets.

Hawaiian’s new A330 business class suites will replace the current outdated models, which despite being lie-flat beds are arranged in a 2-2-2 layout of 18 seats across three rows.

Shifting to a 1-2-1 layout reduces the number of seats in the same space, but “you can assume that we are going to make sure that there are enough seats to fulfil the demand,” Birkett Rakow said.

This indicates Hawaiian will extend its A330 business class cabin back to the main doors, into what’s today the first rows of the Extra Comfort cabin, for a complete ‘turn left’ experience.

Today's two-abreast A330 business class will make way for a 1-2-1 layout with doored suites.

There’s also an interesting duality for this front cabin: on routes between Honolulu and the US mainland it’s called first class, but across the other side of the Pacific it’s known as business class.

Might Hawaiian settle on a singular unifying brand for the cabin?

“When Hawaiian Airlines introduced the new interiors for the 787, they branded the suite product as the Leihoki Suites, although it’s called international business class from a product perspective,” Birkett Rakow explained. “So you can continue to watch that space.”

As for premium economy, the A330s will step up from today’s Extra Comfort seats – which from April 22 will be aligned with Alaska Airlines under the Premium Class brand – to a “true premium (economy) cabin” with “a different seat, different amenities, a distinct onboard experience.”

Hawaiian's current Extra Comfort seats will make way for a proper premium economy offering.

A new flagship lounge at Honolulu

Ahead of the A330 refit in 2028, Hawaiian Airlines will elevate the ground experience with the opening of a flagship lounge in Honolulu Airport Terminal 1.

An early render of Hawaiian's new flagship lounge at Honolulu.

Due to open by the end of 2027, this will be three times larger than the current Plumeria Lounge, spread across a footprint of 10,000 square feet, at the entrance to the Mauka Concourse.

“When you go through security and you turn right, you go into a big new area that was just recently completed in the last five years,” Birkett Rakow visualises.

An early render of Hawaiian's new flagship lounge at Honolulu.

“There’s an open area right as you head into that concourse, that right now you could have a really big dance party in, and that’s going to be where the lounge is installed.”

“It’s a perfect space in need of a purpose and we’re giving it a really good purpose as a really high-end flagship Hawaiian Airlines lounge.”

Also read: Hawaiian Airlines to join Oneworld on April 22