QF105 MEL HNL March 2026 cancelled

[justinbrett]

What once was a very popular destination last decade has certainly fallen off a cliff. Some of those loads are pretty poor looking at other months also.

It’s become a very pricey destination now, with all the extra low cost capacity from Australia into Bali, Pacific and Asia, it seems like the traffic has moved elsewhere.

QF are saying the loads on SYD/HNL remain strong.

IMO once HA becomes AS it will help the route as it becomes a viable connection hub. For example flying to LAS, AS has terminated LAX/LAS so there’s only 3x daily flights on AA, making connections to QF difficult. There will actually be more oneworld seats on LAS/HNL than LAS/LAX which is crazy.

Still a reduction in capacity overall, I wonder if HA service will remain as is, load factors look pretty rubbish, circa 50%.

The tricky part is ACCC won’t let AS into the QF/AA JV. It might be smarter for them to axe SYD, codeshare on QF and focus on US domestic connections. Or perhaps resume BNE with both routes codesharing on the other.

I believe SYD-HNL will drop back to 6x weekly from May 2026. The daily service is temporary.

I’ve only seen the ET article - strange if they feel they have enough pax to make daily necessary for April, why isn’t that ongoing? I’ve certainly had a few schedule changes over the years that made me choose +/- 1 day.

 

[offshore171]

strange if they feel they have enough pax to make daily necessary for April, why isn’t that ongoing?

April is Easter + AU school holidays.

Hawaii is quite peaky around school holidays. I'd imagine a significant drop off in demand in May

 

[justinbrett]

April is Easter + AU school holidays.

Hawaii is quite peaky around school holidays. I'd imagine a significant drop off in demand in May

IME it's the reverse, Easter holidays mark the end of the annual slump (from late Jan to start of Easter). The school term period between Apr-June doesn't usually see the same slump as the first term. It made sense why QF initially suspended MEL/HNL for Feb/Mar as these are always the dead months. Now if QF103/4 goes back to daily for the June holidays that would make sense but I don't think that's the case.

Especially to a beach destination like Hawaii, it's a more competitive destination during the Australian winter.

 

[offshore171]

IME it's the reverse, Easter holidays mark the end of the annual slump (from late Jan to start of Easter). The

Isn't that what I was saying though? This year April contains both the easter break and the school holidays.

Hawaii skews more towards holiday than business travellers, and is popular with family travellers who can only travel in school holidays. Hence April busy, May slow.. Aren't we saying the same thing?

 

[justinbrett]

Isn't that what I was saying though? This year April contains both the easter break and the school holidays.

Hawaii skews more towards holiday than business travellers, and is popular with family travellers who can only travel in school holidays. Hence April busy, May slow.. Aren't we saying the same thing?

It reads that you are saying that April is the end of the demand. I’m saying April is the start of the demand. We both agree April is in demand, I'm debating the "significant drop off" in May.

Looking at the BITRE stats, in 2024 traffic for MEL/SYD-HNL increased in April compared to March, but further increased in May, again in June and again each month through to September, where it dropped again apart from a Dec/Jan peak.

For 2025 there was a slight reduction in May compared to April, but still much higher than March. It recovered in July. The numbers for 2025 appear to be softer all round and I think this is more to do with the general trends on US routes as widely discussed in another thread.