Regarding Kelly Slater and Bob Hurley's recent complaints…
I like Hawaiian Airlines. Do my best to use them to and from the mainland. Usually a little more expensive than other carriers, but I think it’s worth it. Staff is typically very friendly. Planes are newer. Always very clean. I’ve honestly had nothing but good experiences.
But I don’t travel with surfboards.
No real reason to bother. I live where the water is warm and the waves are fairly good. I’m perfectly happy to avoid the hassle of lugging around a huge bag. Don’t mind riding beaten rental equipment. I toss a pair of swim fins in my roller bag, go for a bodysurf if that’s my only option.
So when Bob Hurley (and Kelly Slater) started complaining about Hawaiian Airline’s policy regarding surfboards my first reaction was, “Aw, boo-hoo. Poor rich boy wasn’t being catered to?”
Probably an unfair response.
Yesterday Hawaiian Airlines posted a rebuttal on Instagram. One sentence in particular stuck in my craw.
Plus, we’re liable for damages if something goes wrong. The fees we charge are intended to cover those costs, and we try to keep them reasonable and competitive.
Translation: We charge you for the damage we do to other people’s boards.
They followed up with:
We try our best to inform our guests about these policies before they travel, because nothing is more upsetting and frustrating than learning about them at the airport.
Can’t argue with that. Unfortunately, the policies on their site aren’t one hundred percent crystal clear.
So I called up the Hawaiian Airlines customer service line at (877) 426-4537 to see if they could shed some light on the matter.
What followed was one of the most bat-shit crazy attempts to find information I’ve ever experienced. Thirty five minutes on the phone, half of which was spent on hold. No big deal, the lady was trying to help. Kinda. If you consider politely giving me totally wrong information regarding size restrictions, prices, and damage coverage, refusing to transfer me to someone who knew more, then finally admitting, “We actually don’t know the process of the airport agent because we actually are located in the Philippines,” helpful.
And, of course, no one would ever consider that helpful. It’s the complete opposite.
If I actually needed the information I would have lost my fucking mind. Thankfully I was just playing surf journalist and was able to remain nice and calm.
You can listen to the call here. It’s pure lunacy. It has been edited to remove time I spent on hold, nothing more.
What’s the takeaway? Hawaiian’s release was nothing more than a disingenuous PR move. They don’t have a clear policy in place, their support staff is totally untrained. Ship boards with them at your own peril. Despite what they say there’s no way of knowing what’s gonna happen until you’re standing at the gate.
What really sucks is there’s not much we can do about it. Hawaiian could serve me a steaming pile of shit for my in-flight meal, charge fifteen bucks for it, and I’d still choose them over Delta or United.
Hawaiian hasn’t lost my business. Still gonna use them to and from. But it’s worrying. Demonstrates a real lack of care. Shows that they’re far more concerned about perception than actual service. Whoever is in charge of the company’s public face is totally detached from the actual operation.
Get your shit together, Hawaiian Airlines. There’s no excuse for this kind of service.
Just getting around to listening to your back catalog. Holy christ on a cracker, every time I heard her say “uh for that one…” I wanted to punch someone. How did you keep your composure? And I hate it when you ask them to put you on with someone else and they ignore your request. Thanks for putting up with that for the rest of us. You deserve a medal. Next time I see you I’ll buy you a sausage mcmuffin cause you deserve a break today.
Great Inertia sentence: “Carissa Moore, as everyone knows, is basically a ball of shining, shimmering ball of fuzzy niceness.”
Best board charge justification I ever saw was planes to Costa Rica in mid-90s. They used to charge 6 months a year on all baggage over XX inches because Ticos were showing up at the airport with refrigerators to get around the tariffs. So they started charging everyone and would drop it once the holiday buying season was over.
eventually, these CEOs will want their SUP instead of their golf clubs and Hawaiian will find a way. as much as you surfers want to be a mainstay of Hawaiian airlines customers, you’re just the asshole with another $300 in baggage fees on top of the ticket. just bring your snorkel for Hanauma Bay and be quiet.
Rory, the reason you don’t take your surfboards is because you only like high quality surf – not flat burger waves as you highlighted like Margaret River – they for Mals, not chargers like you.
The shit thing is crap like golf clubs which are ‘sporting equipment’ are not counted as either excess baggage or weight.
I don’t think the airlines have control over damaged boards. The baggage handlers are a third party and hired by the airport not the airlines so I can see why they charge for surfboards as they are fragile and a pain in the ass to deal with, as long as they reimburse people for damage. Jetblue reimbursed me $100 on the spot for snapping a tiny portion of the nose off of 2 of my boards after the whole JJF debacle(not entirely sure that had anything to do with it though). I’ll willingly pay a fee as the airlines are providing an excellent service. After all they are flying you around the world in a metal tube for a relatively low cost. If you are a responsible human being you’ll check the website for baggage rules before you buy your ticket so you can be ready for what is to come. The problem is like what Rory said, terrible customer service when the airlines don’t make their rules clear and make policies up on the fly. Normal surfers (like us BeachGritians) don’t have a voice because we are such a small portion of their business so they’ll normally tell us to get fucked no matter the situation. But people like Kelly and JJF, with their millions of followers, can maybe cause some of these more negligent airlines to get their shit together.
The guys loading and unloading the planes for Hawaiian all have the same purple hawaiian airlines shirts on pretty sure they employ their own handlers.
Rory- you can now add investigative reporter on your resume and application package for the Global Hobo internship. Job well done and hopefully Gemma will take note.
I travel on Hawaiian inter island and elsewhere, with boards, fairly often; and they ding my boards, fairly often – no matter how good I protect them. I tried to have them pay, back in 2007 and 2008; they said they’d pay the cost to fix them; I fixed them myself and didn’t follow up. My point is this: it’s complete bullshit when they say they have to charge the fees in order to pay for board damage. If that were the case, they’d have a strict policy – that they actually enforced – regarding board handling. Instead, the workers “just fly those fakas.” Anyway, here’s a fun video about Hawaiian people.
https://m.youtube.com/watch…
Has anyone ever had any luck getting an airline to pay repairs on damage they’ve caused?
Whenever I’ve complained it’s always “poorly baggaged” (even though it’s a quality double board bag with as much extra padding as can be fitted in) or “there is no proof that the board wasn’t damaged before it was put on the plane”.
Hawaiian offered to pay me for damage repair but it’s a hassle I never took advantage of; and both times I complained to them, they asked if i packed them properly. A long time ago Hawaiian broke my friends board in half, and they paid for a new one but he was a connected politically, and raised a stink.
Rory…I just sent my connection at HA an email. He’s fairly high up on the foodchain so we’ll see if he can clarify.
That’d be unreal. I’d love to talk to him. [email protected]
If I can I will forward on your contact details. I shall keep you posted…
Rory…No luck. It appears that I’ve been slacking on keeping up with Linkedin so my contact is now working at another airline. If anything else materializes I will let you know.
Surely your high-food-chain contact still has contacts ‘high up’, irrespect of whether they moved on or not. It’s as simple as forwarding an email. Or are you posting to big note ones self?
All my other contacts work in a different department so I don’t know who runs the airports now. My friend was aware of the story and his response was “LOL.” I guess no one is that concerned about it.
“LOL” is a pretty typical response when someone knows they have you by the balls.
Pretty much. But like I said…he works in a completely different department and his balls are held in a vise by a different group (think union) so he has his own shit to deal with.
I was aiming that comment more at humanity as a whole…
I though that was already implied for humanity as a whole??? 🙂