Just a year in, Hawaiian shutters its most exclusive lounge and VIP service
Hawaiian Airlines is bucking the trend by eliminating its most premium airport experience.
The Honolulu-based carrier will wind down its premium airport VIP service and close its Apartment 1929 lounge March 14, just over a year after the lounge's introduction.
The airline exclusively confirmed the premium strategy shift to TPG, with a carrier spokesperson saying in a statement that "we will sunset our Premium Airport Service on March 14 to focus on delivering an elevated lounge strategy."
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The airline shared that it is "developing an enhanced lounge program with Alaska Airlines to bring greater value to more guests in Hawai'i and across our network." Last month, Hawaiian shared two renderings of its upcoming premium lounge that will debut in Honolulu at the end of 2027.
As such, Hawaiian isn't giving much notice to flyers about the closure, and it wasn't immediately clear why the airline is seemingly in such a rush to close the space and end its VIP ground handling more than two years before the upcoming premium lounge opens.
Apartment 1929 was a small, intimate space near The Plumeria Lounge in Terminal 1 at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL). The space, marketed as a private lounge, featured a full dining menu from Bar Leather Apron, a James Beard Award-winning bar in downtown Honolulu.
The lounge could hold just 24 guests, and it offered a handful of indoor and outdoor tables and luxurious shower facilities to refresh before a long-haul flight.
Access to the Apartment 1929 lounge — named for the year when Hawaiian was founded — was exclusively reserved for those who purchased the airline's Premium Airport Service. Hawaiian's concierge-esque program included a host of paid perks for departing, arriving or connecting passengers.
The program's rates started at $500 for a party of two and scaled up depending on the type of service you were looking for.
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These changes come as Hawaiian is in the midst of a major transformation with the ongoing integration into Alaska Airlines. The two carriers are developing a joint network strategy, retooling their commercial organizations and building a unified lounge strategy.
That said, while the combined airline has been adamant about expanding its premium offerings, this move is seemingly a step backward, especially given the airline industry's focus on premium experiences in recent years.
From new cabins to snazzy new lounges, premium has been the talk of the airline industry for months. Even budget carriers like JetBlue and ultra-low-cost discounters like Frontier Airlines are joining the bandwagon by debuting a domestic first-class product in the coming months.
Perhaps Hawaiian needs to shutter Apartment 1929 to make room for the construction of the new lounge, but that still doesn't explain why the carrier is suddenly ending its VIP ground services.
It'll be interesting to see if this program gets reintroduced in the coming years, but for now, deep-pocketed travelers who were looking to upgrade their Hawaiian Airlines ground experience will be out of luck.
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