Hawaiian Airlines is the latest airline to announce that it plans to add seats to current aircraft in their fleet to maximize revenue. They will be standardizing their Boeing 717 aircraft to seat 128 passengers.  Currently some of Hawaiian’s eighteen 717s have 118 seats, while other 717s have 123 seats.

Hawaiian’s 717s are short haul airplanes on flights generally less than an hour that hop from island-to-island. Hawaiian says that the new reconfigured interior will be fitted with modern, lightweight and thin seats that will maintain comfort and personal space.

Bottom Line:

Standardizing the number of seats in a type of aircraft makes good operational sense – any aircraft can be swapped for any aircraft.  Hawaiian is basically adding one or two rows of seats per aircraft.  Hawaiian is lucky that the short stage length of the flights will minimize passenger discomfort.