Hawaiian Nines Pt1: Jetbirds to Pualanis

By 1965 Hawaiian Airlines was a in a good place having posted record earnings for 1964 of $601,724 on gross revenues of $10,559,047. It had just celebrated its 35th anniversary and had carried over 10,000,000 passengers without a single passenger fatality. Turbo-props were just starting to join the fleet but the future for Hawaiian was jets.

Hawaiian ordered a pair of Douglas DC-9-15s for delivery in 1966 and the first was introduced on inter-island flights on April 1. N901H and N902H wore a new jetbird logo. The two 88 passenger aircraft proved popular and Hawaiian placed follow on orders for a pair of larger series 31s seating 115 passengers. The new jets reduced travel times to only minutes on the entire network, for example Maui-Honolulu took only 20 minutes. The jets weren't necessarily ideal for these short high frequency operations but passenger expectations and competition from Aloha dictated their usage and at least the DC-9 was a rugged machine.

The DC-9s replaced the DC-3s and DC-6s and gradually supplanted the new NAMC YS-11s too. Passenger traffic to Hawaii was booming as the CAB had opened up mainland-Hawaii operations to many of the major US trunk airlines. On November 1, 1967 the airline's first DC-9-31, N903H, was delivered. The series 31 fleet grew steadily with the addition of N905H (April 1968), N906H (March 1969), N907H (May 1969), N1798U (October 1969), N908H (April 1970), N1799U (September 1971) and N1332U (November 1971). The last two allowed the retirement of the short DC-9-15s.

A last pair of DC-9-30s were delivered in June 1972 and November 1973 both series 32CFs. These quick change variants were used for cargo operations at night and passenger services during the day. They provided a vital lifeline to Lanai and Molokai. By the time of delivery of the second of these, N94454, the airline had rebranded itself with a bright new appearance. In October 1973 the 'Pualani' flower of the sky livery was adopted. Designed by the famous Walter Landor Associates of San Francisco it incorporated the red hibiscus, state flower of Hawaii, with the profile of a Polynesian woman.

Expansion continued for Hawaiian when in September 1975 it became the US launch customer for the stretched DC-9-51 which seated 139 passengers. Eight aircraft, registered N609HA-N679HA in increments of ten, were delivered up to June 1976 and allowed the complete replacement of the DC-9-31 fleet (the two DC-9-32CFs stayed in service). N903H was sold to Hughes Airwest as N911RW. She joined the new Republic in 1980 when Hughes Airwest was taken over and switched to Northwest when Republic was swallowed. Finally her career ended in 1999 when she was retired in September of that year.

The series 51 fleet was added to as the 1970s continued with a further pair (N699HA and N709HA) arriving in July 1978 and June 1979 respectively. Each of the DC-9-51s was named after an island flower with N709HA becoming 'Awapuhi'.

The DC-9s had been the backbone of Hawiian's success during the 1970s and the airline's faith in McDonnell Douglas products would continue into the 1980s. In part 2 we'll look at the further development of the inter-island fleet.

References

Cohen, Stan. 1986. Hawaiian Airlines - A Pictorial History of the Pioneer Carrier in the Pacific
Airline Timetable images - Hawaiian Airlines