Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Feb 2024: Day 2 – Los Angeles LAX to Honolulu HNL

By Nige on Sat 17 Feb 2024 at 14:29
Type: Post
Story: Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Feb 2024
Tags: American Airlines | Hilton | HNL | Honolulu | LAX | Los Angeles | Trips | Waikiki

I managed to turn off the light last night at half past midnight. Three hours later and I was awake and raring to go. The alarm was set for 4am, but there was no point in hanging around.

It didn’t take me long to get ready and I was soon walking back down Century Boulevard in the slightly cooler early morning. It was about 12 deg c.

It was nice and quiet, but I always come across one or two people on the sidewalk. I always try to skirt around giving them plenty of room to avoid any scary encounters. All good today.

LAX was nice and quiet and when I reached T4, I found that TSA Pre-Check was already open at just before 4:30am.

It didn’t take long to get through the security check and I then joined the back of a 10 passenger queue to get into the AA Flagship Lounge.

Once in, I had to get my boarding pass checked. I was in first class but my group number was Group 2?

I didn’t quite understand that, so the customer services rep reprinted my boarding pass and it showed Group 1. I suspect it was because it was a BA-printed boarding pass.

Having secured my favourite seat, I dumped my stuff and headed over to TBIT to get my Starbucks.

According to the Starbucks app, the Starbucks store close to Gate 153 opens at 4am – I always though it didn’t open until 5am – seems early when there are limited flights going out at that time of day.

Back to the lounge and I was tempted by the Brussel sprouts and grapes. I’ve enjoyed them previously and today was just as nice.

They were accompanied by potatas bravas and some spicy sausage. Nice!

Spoke with Vick, who had been out lunching with her choir mates. Ladies, that lunch, eh?

The flight to Honolulu was due to leave from Gate 53B at 9am, so I planned to head down there at 8am.

Hawaii flights are always a bit of a scrum at the gate. If I remember correctly, Gate 53B is quite tight, so as soon as you get a few passengers milling around the gate area, it’s difficult to get through.

There are always a good few wheelchairs heading to Hawaii, so that complicates queuing at the gate as well.

I got to the gate about 50 mins before the scheduled departure – it was the gate I was thinking about.

It was showing as boarding would start in 5 mins, so I was glad I got down there early.

I managed to get myself in prime boarding position, but I kept out of the way to allow pre-boarders easy access. Pre-boarding started at 45 mins out, then there was an issue with aircraft weight.

Flight: AA0031 Equip: A321Neo
Sched Depart: 09:00 Actual: 09:11
Sched Arrival: 13:16 Actual: 14:08
Takeoff: 09:32 Landing: 14:04

Gate staff made an announcement: five passengers needed to be unloaded, and vouchers were being offered if passengers were prepared to take a later flight.

It was a big no from me – I was going to be there long enough to make it worthwhile. But it made me wonder what was going on.

Late arriving passengers decided to crowd the priority boarding queue, so I was sort of forced into joining the queue.

On board into 01F and there was a delay due to the weight issue. Perhaps tied in with the long flight time and strong jet stream working against us.

Finally pushed back a good ten mins late. We joined a long queue of aircraft waiting to take off.

It was overcast in Los Angeles, so after taking off, we quickly climbed into the clouds.

I’ve taken plenty of photos looking back at LAX, and I wasn’t going to be able to add to the collection today.

Drinks service started, and in addition to a cup of tea, I ordered a glass of bucks fizz for a change. Nice it was too!

Breakfast comprised an omelette with a sausage and potatoes, some fruit, and a yoghurt.

I dozed for a while and watched Up in the Air (again). I love that film!

The rest of the flight dragged on to be honest. I wanted to get into my hotel room to have a chance to relax.

I got a very blue view of the islands on the way to O’Ahu and we definitely approached the island further south than the normal flight path would take us.

It was lovely to see Hawaii again and it was also a relief that the end of our flight was nigh.

Arrived into Gate D2 – not one I have experienced before.

Whilst waiting in the galley to deboard, the cockpit door was opened and the flight crew and cabin crew exchanged comments to the effect “wow – we just about made it”.

I couldn’t help but wonder whether that was a reference to the strong winds and the large amount of fuel required to get the aircraft to Honolulu.

Which also tied in with the weight issue we experienced at LAX and our need to offload 5 passengers in LAX.

The captain came out and I had a brief chat with him.

Apparently, due to the southern route we took compared to the normal northern route, we arrived before a Hawaiian flight that took off an hour before us – it decided to fly the northern route as normal.

Interestingly, I checked flightaware.com later on and I couldn’t find any evidence of this. Not sure what that really says about my exchange with the captain!

From Gate D2, it was a shorter walk than normal to the Uber pickup location. However, the Uber was very expensive at $46. On the positive side, i got the timing spot on. I only waited 1 min before climbing in and getting on my way to Waikiki.

Follow the whole story here: Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Feb 2024