More evidence that the demand for travel is going through the roof - though not exactly what you want to hear if you happen to work for Hawaiian Airlines.
An abundance of phone calls, as well as visits to Hawaiian's website, proved to be overwhelming last week, as the volume simply swamped the airline and knocked its reservation systems off-line, according to the Honolulu Civil Beat.
Hawaiian was forced to apologize to all customers unable to book flights either online or by phone.
The problems, which the airline described as separate issues, come as people have begun traveling again between the islands and to and from the mainland amid eased COVID-19 restrictions and an uptick in vaccines.
Alex DaSilva, a Hawaiian Airlines spokesman, said the problems with online and telephone reservation systems were separate issues but compounded each other, as those that were knocked offline went to the phones next and overwhelmed that.
DaSilva said the entire industry is struggling with the surge.
"It's a result of pent-up demand," he said.
On Friday, the company apologized to customers.
"Our technology team is working night and day to solve the performance issues on HawaiianAirlines.com," Hawaiian said in an email. "Our Customer Contacts team is training new agents and staffing up our call center."
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