Southwest Airlines will operate just 32 daily interisland flights in Hawaiʻi from next March, down from 50 and barely half the 64 daily flights it flew at its summer 2023 peak. The carrier's latest schedule filing, which extended its booking window from March 10 to April 5, cancels all flying between the neighbor islands themselves and consolidates interisland service on Honolulu links to Hilo, Kahului, Kona and Līhuʻe.

The reduction is not simply a capacity cut. It restructures how the network operates.

What changes in the interisland network?

Southwest's 2023 peak schedule spread departures throughout the day. By April 2025, peaks had formed, but the operation still offered a variety of departure times. The March schedule introduces a clear bank structure: all four neighbor island airports receive flights at the same four times of day, and the morning departure bank from Honolulu has disappeared. Aircraft now begin their day on the neighbor islands before flying into Honolulu.

The result, based on Cirium and Southwest schedule data, is a product aimed largely at price-sensitive local travelers who care less about timing — and a network that primarily serves connecting passengers from the mainland. Four of the ten mainland cities with Honolulu service — Burbank, Long Beach, Ontario and San Jose — have no nonstop service to the neighbor islands at all, making interisland connections essential to their Hawaiʻi utility.

The shift further cements Hawaiian Airlines' role as the carrier that powers the interisland economy. For Southwest, the local market now looks more like an afterthought than a strategic priority — a far cry from the inroads many expected when the airline first entered the market.

How has mainland–Hawaiʻi capacity shifted?

Redeye flights, now part of the Southwest network, have reshaped departure times. On a Saturday in summer 2023, Southwest operated 13 departures from Hawaiʻi to the mainland before 11am and 17 between 11am and 4pm. Next March, the schedule shows only two departures before 11am, 16 between 11am and 5pm, and 10 redeyes.

The mainland origin points have shifted too:

• Las Vegas remains the top market and functions as a hub-to-hub pairing with Honolulu, keeping flying that no other Southwest hub has — including the only mainland flight to Hilo and a new westbound redeye from Vegas, a pattern already popular with kamaʻāina flying Hawaiian.
• San Diego has surged into clear second place, now serving all four main neighbor island airports, with new weekend flights to Kona and Līhuʻe. This looks as much like a fight with Alaska for the San Diego local market as a Hawaiʻi play.
• The Bay Area has fallen sharply. Oakland, which had Southwest's first flight to the islands, is a fraction of its former size. San Jose retains only a Honolulu flight, and Sacramento is down.
• Southern California is mixed. LAX is down to one poorly timed daily Honolulu round trip (afternoon westbound, redeye back) plus Saturday-only flights to Kahului, Kona and Līhuʻe. Long Beach has fallen to five weekly Honolulu flights — but that same 5x weekly pattern has spread to Burbank and Ontario, a gain for those airports.

What does this mean going forward?

With these moves Southwest becomes a niche player interisland and a more focused operator between the mainland and the islands. Las Vegas and Honolulu emerge as the two principal connecting points, while western airports with strong Hawaiʻi demand keep service — just less of it, with San Diego the sole exception. Southwest never made the inroads in Hawaiʻi it originally hoped for, and this schedule makes explicit that its island future runs through connections, not local interisland share.