US Airways' Charlotte to Honolulu Flight Might Just Work

(MoneyWatch)  US Airways took a very unusual step this weekend by announcing that it will begin flying from Charlotte to Honolulu with a 767-200. There are a million reasons why this is a bad idea, but it may actually end up being kind of smart.

At first glance, this doesn't seem smart. Hawai'i is a huge market from the West Coast, but it thins out quickly beyond the Rockies because it's so far away. It's easier to go down to the Caribbean. That's why there aren't very many flights from the East Coast to Hawai'i.

If that's not enough, Delta recently upgauged its Atlanta to Honolulu flight to a 747-400, so its added more capacity in an already relatively thin market.

Hawai'i is notoriously low yield, so airlines like United have put their 2-cabin 777s on the route which pack people in to make money. US Airways is using an internationally-configured 767 which means it doesn't have the density that you would hope for on a flight like this.

Now, let's talk about why this makes a fair amount of sense. In the current downturn, business traffic is taking the biggest hit while leisure travel has actually been holding up far better. If nothing else, Hawai'i is most definitely a leisure market.

Fares to and from Hawai'i have been climbing since so much capacity was pulled out last year after ATA and Aloha failed. So it's actually not a bad market in general.

US Airways was flying these 767s to Europe, but we know Transatlantic demand has fallen dramatically. They've chosen to pull the 767s out of Europe for the winter, so where could they put them? The plane has the range for Hawai'i, so why not give it a shot?

Lastly, though it is an internationally-configured airplane, it's actually relatively dense. US Airways has 204 seats on this airplane. For comparison, United's larger 767-300 has only 183 seats in the international configuration. United's domestically configured 767-300 has 255 seats.

US Airways has decided that flying a 767 to Europe this winter is a bad idea, so it had to place it somewhere. Are there better airplanes to fly to Hawai'i from the East Coast? Probably, but they don't have the luxury of choosing. This is a bit of a gamble, but I tend to think it could be their best option. And it just might work.