I updated the Alaska Airlines app Tuesday morning. When it relaunched, I was staring at a booking screen that let me search Hawaiian Airlines inter-island flights from the same search bar I use to book Seattle to Portland. No separate app. No redirect. Just both airlines, one interface.

Alaska and Hawaiian officially consolidated their mobile apps this week. One app for booking, check-in, boarding passes, real-time flight tracking, and Mileage Plan management across both carriers. This happened ahead of the April 22 booking system merger — the big backend cutover we covered in our Alaska-Hawaiian merger booking guide. The app is the first piece of that puzzle going live for passengers.

I’ve spent three days poking at it. Booked flights on both airlines, tested check-in flows, monitored flight status for Hawaiian routes, and tried to break it in the ways airline apps usually break. Here’s what I found.

Quick Verdict

Aspect	Rating
Booking Experience	★★★★☆
Check-in Flow	★★★☆☆
Flight Tracking	★★★★☆
Loyalty Integration	★★★★☆
Stability	★★★☆☆

Best for: Travelers who fly both Alaska and Hawaiian and want one place to manage everything Skip if: You only fly Hawaiian inter-island and the old app worked fine for you Price: Free Works offline: Boarding passes yes, everything else no Platforms: iOS, Android

What Changed in the Unified App

If you had the Alaska Airlines app already, it updated in place. Same app, new capabilities. If you had the Hawaiian Airlines app, you got a notification directing you to download the Alaska app instead. The Hawaiian Airlines standalone app is dead. Not deprecated, not “coming soon” — gone from both app stores as of April 1.

Here’s what the unified app now covers:

• Booking: Search and book flights on Alaska and Hawaiian metal from one search. Codeshares with partner airlines (American, oneworld carriers) also appear.
• Check-in: Check in for flights on either carrier. Hawaiian flights now use Alaska’s check-in interface.
• Boarding passes: Digital boarding passes for both airlines. Wallet integration on iOS and Android.
• Flight status: Real-time tracking for Alaska and Hawaiian flights. Gate changes, delays, cancellations.
• Mileage Plan: Unified loyalty dashboard. Your converted Hawaiian Miles balance shows alongside Alaska miles. Award booking for both airlines through the app.
• Seat selection: Seat maps for Hawaiian’s A330s, 787s, and 717s now appear in Alaska’s seat selection interface.

That last one matters more than it sounds. Hawaiian’s widebody aircraft have a different cabin layout than anything Alaska flies domestically. Seeing those seat maps rendered correctly in the Alaska app — with Hawaiian’s extra-comfort seats, galley positions, and configuration. That tells me someone actually did the integration work rather than just slapping a search redirect on top.

What Actually Works Well

Unified Search, Finally

The single search bar pulling results from both airlines is what everyone wanted and what took forever to arrive. I searched Honolulu to Maui. Results came back in about two seconds — Hawaiian 717 flights mixed in with the full schedule. No separate tab. No “also check Hawaiian” prompt. Just results.

I also searched Seattle to Honolulu. Both Alaska 737s and Hawaiian A330 widebodies appeared, correctly showing different aircraft types and cabin configurations. You can actually comparison-shop within the same airline group now without opening two apps or two browser tabs.

The search is fast. Consistently under three seconds on LTE. Faster than the old Hawaiian app ever was, which sometimes took 8-10 seconds to return inter-island results (I’m not exaggerating — I timed it in February).

Flight Tracking Is Sharp

Real-time flight status for both carriers pulls from the same data feed. I tracked a Hawaiian HA11 from JFK to Honolulu on Tuesday night. Gate change at JFK pushed to my phone within two minutes of the airport display updating. Estimated arrival time adjusted three times during the flight, and each update was within five minutes of FlightAware’s estimate.

The tracking screen shows inbound aircraft status too. If your Hawaiian flight is delayed because the incoming plane from Osaka is late, the app tells you that. The old Hawaiian app didn’t surface inbound aircraft information at all.

Mileage Plan Dashboard

My Hawaiian Miles converted to Alaska Mileage Plan miles a few weeks ago (the loyalty merge happened before the app merge). The unified app shows my full Mileage Plan balance, elite status, and activity history including old Hawaiian flights. I can see a Hawaiian inter-island flight from January alongside an Alaska SEA-SFO segment from last week. One timeline.

Award search through the app now pulls availability on Hawaiian routes. I searched Mileage Plan award space on Honolulu to Kona — found saver-level availability at 5,000 miles one-way. That’s actually cheaper than the old Hawaiian Miles rate of 7,500. Whether that holds long-term is anyone’s guess, but right now the app is showing it.

What Doesn’t Work (Yet)

Check-in Friction for Hawaiian Flights

This is the rough edge. I tried checking in for a Hawaiian inter-island flight 24 hours before departure. The app accepted my check-in but took 45 seconds to process — spinning wheel, no progress indicator, I nearly killed the app thinking it had frozen. It eventually returned my boarding pass, but the experience felt fragile.

Contrast this with checking in for an Alaska domestic flight through the same app. Eight seconds. Boarding pass generated, added to wallet, done.

The lag appears specific to Hawaiian flights. My guess: the check-in request is routing through Hawaiian’s legacy backend, which hasn’t fully migrated to Alaska’s infrastructure yet. That should resolve after the April 22 system cutover. But right now, if you’re checking in for a Hawaiian flight through the app, give it a full minute before panicking.

Seat Maps Are Sometimes Wrong

I pulled up the seat map for a Hawaiian A330-200 on the Honolulu to Sydney route. The app showed a 2-4-2 configuration in economy. Hawaiian’s A330-200s on that route are 2-4-2 in some rows but have a section that’s 3-3-2. The app didn’t render the mixed configuration — it showed a uniform layout. I picked what I thought was an aisle seat; checking against SeatGuru, it’s actually a middle seat in the irregular section.

This isn’t a minor thing. If you’re booking a 10-hour flight to Sydney and you trust the app’s seat map, you could end up in a seat you didn’t choose. For Hawaiian widebody flights, I’d cross-reference with SeatGuru until Alaska fixes the configuration mapping.

Alaska’s own 737 seat maps display correctly. It’s the Hawaiian widebody layouts that have rendering issues.

Notifications Are Doubled

I added both an Alaska flight and a Hawaiian flight to my upcoming trips. Got a “check-in open” notification for the Alaska flight — once. Got the same notification for the Hawaiian flight. Twice. One from what appears to be Alaska’s notification system, one from what I assume is Hawaiian’s legacy push notification service that hasn’t been fully deprecated.

Annoying, not catastrophic. But if you have four Hawaiian flights in a trip (which is normal for an island-hopping itinerary), you’re getting eight notifications instead of four. In the middle of the night, if your inter-island flight opens check-in at midnight local time. I turned off duplicate notifications by going into iOS settings and restricting notification frequency, but that’s a workaround, not a fix.

The Seattle to Rome Factor

One thing I haven’t seen covered anywhere: Alaska’s first-ever European route, Seattle to Rome on a Boeing 787-9, launches April 28. It’s bookable through the unified app right now.

I searched SEA to FCO in the app. The flight appeared with the full 787-9 seat map, including Alaska’s new premium cabin configuration for long-haul. You can select seats, see the cabin layout, and book in one flow. This is Alaska’s first widebody long-haul service, and the booking experience through the app is polished. No redirects, no “call to book” nonsense. Just a standard booking flow with accurate seat maps (unlike the Hawaiian widebody issue).

If you’re an Alaska loyalist who’s been waiting for European routes, the app is ready. The Rome launch is a signal that more European destinations will follow, and the app infrastructure for long-haul international booking is already built.

How Does It Compare to Other Airline Apps?

I keep the top five US airline apps on my phone at all times. Here’s where the new unified Alaska/Hawaiian app sits:

Better than: The old Hawaiian Airlines app (which was slow, clunky, and crashed during seat selection). Also better than Spirit’s app, but that’s a low bar.

On par with: United’s app for booking and flight tracking. Delta’s app for check-in speed on Delta metal. (Delta still wins for bag tracking and proactive rebooking notifications during delays.)

Worse than: Delta’s app overall. Delta’s app is still the best domestic US airline app: proactive rebooking, live bag tracking, SkyMiles integration that actually makes sense. Alaska’s unified app isn’t there yet. American’s app for international itinerary management, though American’s app has its own issues with partner flights.

The Alaska/Hawaiian app is solidly mid-tier right now. Better than what either airline had individually. Room to grow.

Privacy and Data

The unified app asks for the same permissions the old Alaska app did: location (for airport detection), notifications, and camera (for document scanning during check-in). It doesn’t request contacts, microphone, or health data.

If you had a Hawaiian Airlines account, your personal data migrated to Alaska’s systems as part of the loyalty program merge. The app’s privacy policy now covers both airlines’ data under Alaska Air Group’s umbrella. Nothing unusual here, and the permission requests are reasonable for an airline app.

One note: the app does track location in the background if you enable “airport experience” features (automatic check-in reminders when you arrive at the airport). I leave this off. The battery drain isn’t worth it, and I don’t need my airline knowing when I walk into a terminal.

What to Do Before April 22

The app is live now, but the booking system merger happens April 22. Between now and then:

1. Download or update the Alaska Airlines app. If you only had the Hawaiian app, you need to switch. The Hawaiian app is gone.
2. Log in with your Mileage Plan credentials. If you haven’t set up your Mileage Plan account after the Hawaiian Miles conversion, do it now. You need a Mileage Plan number to access loyalty features in the app.
3. Re-add any existing Hawaiian bookings manually. Some Hawaiian confirmation numbers aren’t automatically appearing in the app’s “My Trips” section. If your Hawaiian booking doesn’t show up, add it using “Add a Trip” and entering the record locator. If it still doesn’t appear, call Alaska reservations to verify it exists in the system.
4. Don’t trust Hawaiian widebody seat maps in the app yet. Cross-reference with SeatGuru for A330 and 787 routes. Alaska’s own aircraft display correctly.
5. Expect check-in lag for Hawaiian flights. Budget an extra minute during check-in. Don’t force-close the app if it seems stuck.

Who Benefits Most From This

Frequent Hawaii travelers who connect through Seattle or the West Coast. You’re the primary audience. One app to book SEA-HNL on Alaska, then HNL-OGG on Hawaiian, then manage both flights, get notifications for both, and earn Mileage Plan miles on the full itinerary. Before this, you needed two apps and two loyalty accounts.

Oneworld elites. Hawaiian joining oneworld means your British Airways Executive Club status or American AAdvantage Platinum status now gets you benefits on Hawaiian flights. The app shows your oneworld tier and applies benefits when you check in.

Anyone booking Alaska’s new European routes. The Rome launch is April 28 and more European routes will follow. The unified app handles international long-haul booking well.

Who Should Wait

Hawaiian-only inter-island travelers who don’t fly Alaska. The old Hawaiian app was simple. Check in, get a boarding pass, fly to Maui. The new unified app works for this but adds complexity you don’t need. The check-in lag for Hawaiian flights is also annoying if that’s all you use the app for. Give it a month for the kinks to smooth out.

Anyone traveling before April 22 who doesn’t want to troubleshoot. The app works, but it’s pre-merger. Some features are running on Hawaiian’s legacy backend. If your trip is before the cutover and you want zero friction, check in through AlaskaAir.com on a browser instead.

The Bottom Line

The unified Alaska + Hawaiian app is real, it works, and it’s the right move. Combining two airline apps into one was always the inevitable endgame of this merger, and they shipped it before the April 22 backend cutover instead of after. That’s actually smart — it lets millions of passengers test the front end while the backend is still running on parallel systems.

Is it good? It’s good enough. Booking is fast and accurate. Flight tracking is better than what Hawaiian’s app offered by a wide margin. Mileage Plan integration is clean. The problems — check-in lag on Hawaiian flights, wrong widebody seat maps, doubled notifications — are fixable and will probably disappear after April 22 when the backend fully merges.

If you fly both airlines, install it now. If you fly only Hawaiian, install it now because you don’t have a choice. And if you’re eyeing that Seattle to Rome route on April 28, the app is ready for you.

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Tested on iOS 19.3 from April 1-3, 2026. Android version tested briefly — similar performance. App features and stability will change after the April 22 booking system merger. Verify current functionality through Alaska Airlines directly.