Southwest Airlines travelers can now fly directly from San Diego to Honolulu on a new service that took off Wednesday out of the San Diego International Airport. Southwest Airlines launched its inaugural nonstop service from SAN to the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) with an 8 a.m. flight. Kimberly Becker, San Diego County Regional Airport Authority President and CEO, said in a press release that the airport had been anticipating the nonstop route for months. (www.msn.com) 更多...
None of SWA's aircraft (and that could even be the B738s they inherited from ATA and TRS) are ETOPs compliant. Those runs could be to certify that. TRS did fly down to MMUN, but they were always within range of an airport from their US destination (which I think was KATL), and ATA used a B753, DC10, or L1011 to fly to Hawaii.
So SWA has to make those runs to get the certification before they can actually fly the route.
FAA does not require life vests for over land flights (737 or not) so I wonder if they designated aircraft for this flight or their entire fleet is outfitted with life vests. thanks
All SWA aircraft have vests, they do plenty of over-water flights to places in the Caribbean and such. Not all have life rafts though, which are required for certain extended over-water flights such as part of the Gulf of Mexico and AR routes in the Atlantic.
Hawaii requires all of the above, as well as ETOPS certification for each individual aircraft and crew. There are special dispatch and maintenance requirements for each flight as well.