From Bellanca beginnings and modest intra-islands routes, Hawaiian Airlines has grown to become a major pan-Pacific player. Matteo Legnani details the carrier’s rise from island hopper to globetrotter and considers its promising future.
On November 11, 1929, US President Herbert Hoover led tributes in Washington to those killed during World war one, which had ended 11 years previously. In New York, stocks in the US Steel Company and several other US corporations reached their lowest level following the now famous Wall Street Crash, which had begun the previous month. But in Honolulu, the opening article of that day’s Star-Bulletin newspaper ran with the headline “Inter-Island Air Service Starts”.
Just hours before, Hawaii’s first scheduled commercial passenger air service – a pair of eight-seat Sikorsky S-38 amphibians – departed from the city’s John Rodgers Field (now Kalaeloa Airport) bound for Hilo via Maui. Originally known as Inter-Island Airways, the carrier began offering ad-hoc charters and sightseeing flights using a six-seat Bellanca CH-300 Pacemaker on October 6, 1929, before the Sikorsky duo enabled scheduled links the following month. Despite operating a modest fleet of three aircraft, n…
