Looking at booking Hawaii (Kona) for November. Trying to figure out if we should book with westjet or if we should book with an American airline. Prices are very similar with similar layover times. We are just a little fearful that westjet flights won’t actually fly when the time comes. We want to go with westjet because my husband has status with them so we get free bags. Any insight into this would be very helpful. Thanks.

I'm impartial toWestJet because they're Canadian and have great customer service. In addition, they have flexible change and cancellation fees that some american airlines don't have at the moment.

Jenn westjet was bought out by Onex and is no longer Canadian I believe.

Yes, Onex purchased WS but their headquarters are in Toronto and WS employees are Canadian.

I also so an article some of the US airlines will no longer serve alcohol so if that is a concern...

If you require a car you might want to look into that as well. I have read they are having problems with car rentals on the islands.

Cheryl and that they're REALLY expensive.

Christie I heard they sold most of their fleets because there were no tourists and that it was about $1000/day. Also heard once people start flying they will have more/prices will go down.

I heard the same. I have friends booked to travel later this year, best price they could find so far was $400/ day

I can confirm that a car rental in Kona is very expensive! And that was 10 years ago when life was normal. Check with your hotel, we stayed at the Sheraton and they had a shuttle to certain places.

. following

Most of the american airlines fly through SFO and it's notoriously bad for delayed flights. Flew to Kona through there in September 2019 on United and ended up missing our connection to Kona and having a 14 hour overnight at the airport because our YYC>SFO flight was delayed due to issues in SFO. We got $20 food vouchers since it wasn't technically United's fault that we were delayed. Something to keep in mind. But Kona itself is incredible once you're there.

Teryn I second this! I will never fly through SF again. I’ve missed 2 flights going through there.

Teryn , I third this! Fog is notoriously bad for causing delayed flights and cancellations. We spent close to 30 hours in the darn airport and I try anything to avoid flying into it.

west jet is under the control of our current government...i would think twice...

Colette Marie Harker not by choice I’m guessing.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by control. All airlines in Canada ultimately fall under a degree of control of the federal government. I would say air canada has the closest ties with the government, now that they own a small slice of it. westjet is 100% owned by a private equity group with deep, deep pockets (Onex Corp). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onex_Corporation
EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
Onex Corporation - Wikipedia

Chris west jet is still directed by our goverment. They trade off for financial profits...this is happening now..and will continue until Trudeau says go.

Would need specific details about what you're talking about to respond, not just generalities.

Colette Marie Harker agree with Chris - what details on such a large statement do you have. Haha.

I think there is some bizarre under current at westjet right now. Getting a bit worried about my bank of $ sitting there due to a Covid cancellation.

Maria same tbh

Maria, we have travel bank $ and westjet $. Just booked 2 big trips with them. They are very fair. Use the $ that expire first. If WJ cancels, you lose nothing. Woukd fly with no one else. Their changes are flexible too.

Marie i will be trying to burn off my travel bank as soon as possible. I won’t be using it for some distant trip though. It’s not about their policies/customer service. It’s about their viability long term.

I wouldn't worry about westjet's future too much. They are owned by a private equity group with 44 billion in assets. They were doing extremely well before the pandemic. Things are likely to start turning around here in short order for the Canadian airlines.
delta became cash flow positive again in April, after about 2-3 months of U.S. travellers returning to the skies. United became cash flow positive even sooner, back in March, about a month after travellers returned.
Once Canadians start flying again, particularly domestically, it shouldn't take westjet and AC long to become profitable companies again.
I think the only reason westjet hasn't refunded yet is that they weren't forced to. Unlike air canada, who needed to cut a deal with the government, and refunds were one of the government's terms.
It is a bit surprising that we haven't heard anything about whatever deal westjet and the government were allegedly working on. It was supposed to be nearly complete around the same time as air canada's.

Marie Us too!

Maria you can probably cash that in. I just got mine.

westjet. Support local Canadian companies. It’s been a hard hit for them during the pandemic and the government tied WJ hands in so many ways that was not fair. If we do not support Canadian companies we will lose them and will take decades to come back. Air service is the only mode of transportation we have across this great country of ours.

Doreen
Sherry I believe Onex is Canadian with headquarters in Toronto.

Kim Freeman
Sherry Onex is Canadian

If I were betting money on it, and had 2 choices:
a) 'westjet will be flying to Hawaii in November 2021'
b) 'westjet will not be flying to Hawaii in November 2021'
I would put it on a).
The reasons being:
1. It is looking likely that we will be reducing or eliminating hotel and/or 14 day quarantine restrictions for the vaccinated when returning to Canada, at some point this summer.
It's becoming a question of whether it's June, July, August, or right after Labour Day, or possibly a gradual relaxation of restrictions throughout those months as our 'fully vaccinated' percentage starts to skyrocket in June, which is going to influence Ottawa's policies.
https://ydeals.com/where-canadians-can-travel...
2. Starting on July 4th, Hawaii will be allowing vaccinated U.S. citizens from the mainland U.S. to bypass having to bring a negative test result for entry. It's likely they will expand this to include Canadians next, at some point before or during September.
https://ydeals.com/where-canadians-can-travel#hawaii
air canada and westjet seem to think this as well, with their direct flights from Canada set to resume from Vancouver in September 2021.
3. Hawaii is one of the most popular destinations in the world, and now quite well vaccinated, making it one of the safest. They will likely be reaching herd immunity within a month from now. If there's high demand for travel from Canada to anywhere, it will be Hawaii, and that demand dictates whether westjet resumes flights or not.
The part that might be a little risky is that you're looking to fly from YVR to KOA, and those direct flights aren't scheduled to resume until October 31st. YVR to HNL or OGG would be less of a gamble in my opinion, since they are scheduled to resume in September. If something were to get delayed, you'd likely see the HNL/OGG flight restart date moved to October, and the KOA/LIH restart dates moved to December.
You might want to wait and watch carefully over the next few weeks, regarding news about vaccinated travellers, and whether Ottawa will be eliminating hotel quarantines and/or reducing the 14 day quarantine rules for vaccinated travellers. This could tell us a lot about the direction we're going with travel demand, and where things will likely be at in the fall.

Chris I would rather do the direct flight to HON or OGG then hop on the many Hawaiian airlines flights to KON!!

It's possible to fly direct to Kona (KOA) from Vancouver during normal times.

INSURANCE!! just incase the trip gets cancelled.. Either then that time to start packing and excited.. Wish we were going...

Is it direct flight?

Kanan no there are no directs to kona

Deanna on your return back is it throught another Canadian city?

Kanan nope San Fran there and back

Deanna so it is direct to Calgary..you will quarantine at hotel in Calgary

I want to travel so bad. But can't afford the restrictions on the way back. Really want to book for October but I don't know if I should. Who knows when restrictions will be removed.

Kiana check rental car prices - they're insane! west jet - free cancel / change if booked before June 30

Donna I just mean the 2 week quarantine and the $1200 for hotel

Kiana pretty sure that will be scrapped by then. The govt has said that there is no proof it's helping. It'll dissappear before JT has to fly home from him summit meeting! Lol

I booked a PEI trip Oct and Mexico for Jan on west jet. Like the option to cancel

Donna better if you book a car rental away from airport...

Donna i don’t trust the government. one outbreak and it’s another excuse for a lockdown or quarantine. the usa wants the borders open but jt does not. just a heads up. could could either way but i would prepare for worse case scenario.

I want to travel but don’t want to risk being sent to one of those BS COVID hotels to self isolate also talk of these vaccine passports required to travel out of the country to another country either way I suspect Canada will be the country to fully open up Trudeau is in no hurry has total control and isn’t ready to open up the country.

It's very unlikely one will be required to be vaccinated or have proof of vaccination in order to fly out of Canada. Proof of vaccination will only be used to bypass current restrictions that other countries have for entry (such as a negative test result), and perhaps to bypass current restrictions that we have when coming home (such as a negative test result).
More info: https://ydeals.com/where-canadians-can-travel...
YDEALS.COM
Where Canadians Can Travel (and what they have to go through to get there, and back) :: Ydeals.com

westjet all the way! Let’s support our Canadian Airlines to get them back up and running. (Just my opinion). On another note, I had heard that rental cars are hard to come by in Hawaii now so perhaps check early.

We have been to Hawaii multiple times and in our experience we have had much better travels when we could fly on Canadian airlines and when our transit points were in Canadian ports the stop overs went more smoothly. When we book with American service providers we have had endless delays, mechanical planes, flight cancelations and bumped from over sold planes. Not to say these don't happen on Canadian airlines...but they sure do happen a lot on American ones. We have yet to have a uneventful trip when we book with American providers. Of course some of these problems resulted in extra days spent in Hawaii, and that's never a bad thing either. Haha

Just looked on expedia for cars in Honolulu as I was curious. A week in November is a low of $985cdn for a Jetta to $1200 for a full sized. $170-295/day rate. Rough numbers. Not as reasonable as pre Covid for sure. Alamo was the example. Maybe island owned rental may be less?

We have travelled to Kona numerous times over the years. Alaskan airline through Seattle is my preferred. But we fly westjet with the stopover in YVR. You can also fly into Maui direct and hop over to Kona but the return flights don't match up. The best thing we can do here in YYC is bombard westjet with requests to make a nonstop to Kona... I think they will listen. There is getting to be more of us going

Dawn this!

And factor in your comfort level if plane is a Max 8.

Michelle Campbell

We like going through Seattle on Alaska, their customer service is like west jet used to be. delta also has flights through Seattle. This way you preclear customs in Calgary. We like westjet but not the red eye flights home.