When people hear that I often fly back to New York City, they all remark on how long a trip that must be. And it is, roughly air miles each way. But for some reason most of them don't seem to realize that Continental has a non-stop to Newark from Honolulu! This cuts roughly 3-4 hours off travel time because you don't have to go up and down. It also cuts out possibilities for delays, missed flight connections and baggage dissappearance (since most lost bags happen during transfers from one plane to another). Best of all, the flight going back East is a red eye but due to its duration you can actually sleep for a decent interval.

As opposed to stopping somewhere on the West Coast, which means you can sleep only 3 hours on the 5-hour (total) flight to the West Coast before you have to wake up for landing and then transfer by which point you are awake and good luck sleeping on the next leg. True, often this Newark-Honolulu flight costs a little more -- the planes are always jammed and good luck getting a freqneut flier seat on this route. But to me its worth the extra money in reduced hassle factor. If you are flying to the outer islands, however, then you will still have to hop another plane in Honolulu so you might as well make your stop on the West Coast and catch a direct from those airports to Kauai, Maui or the Big Island.

—Alex, 08/24/06