Southwest Airlines recently launched service to Hawaii, starting with service to Honolulu, and have since added their second city of Kahului (Maui), which launched a few weeks ago. Southwest currently flies from Oakland and Honolulu to Maui, with San Jose service starting next month.

It turns out that Southwest Airlines pilots and flight attendants have been on layover at the Andaz Maui At Wailea Resort.

This was initially reported by one of our readers, and has been confirmed by a Southwest Airlines flight attendant that this is one of the official crew hotels for their Maui layovers.

I’m pretty surprised that Southwest would be putting up their crews at the Andaz, however this hotel has a high amount of World of Hyatt redemptions. When it comes to the hotel getting reimbursed from Hyatt, it’s common to have one rate if the hotel isn’t full, and another rate ( often the average nightly rate), if the hotel has a certain amount of occupancy.

It’s possible that the Andaz Maui was having trouble consistently reaching their occupancy levels to receive the higher reimbursement, so that could have been a major factor in deciding to choose to take Southwest Airlines crews as their layover hotel in Maui.

If you happen to be at the Andaz Maui, you may see a few pilots and flight attendants checking-in, and now you know why. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.