Hawaiian Airlines Flying Oakland Raiders, Seattle Seahawks

File photo.

By Sonia Isotov

Hawaiian Airlines announced that it will continue to provide the Oakland Raiders and Seattle Seahawks football teams with charter flights and a special in-flight service for road games this NFL season.

This is the 12^th straight year that Hawaiian Airlines was the official charter airline for the Oakland Raiders and the second consecutive year and third year out of the past four for the Seahawks.

“We take tremendous pride in being the Raiders’ airline of choice for all these years and look forward to taking care of the team as we carry them to road games again this season,” said Glenn Taniguchi, Hawaiian’s senior vice president of marketing and sales, in a written statement today. “The Seahawks are making some long trips.This season and we feel privileged to be working in partnership with the organization.”

“The comfort provided by Hawaiian’s wide-body, twin-aisle aircraft provides an atmosphere conducive to on-going game preparation,” said Seahawks president Peter McLoughlin, in a corporate written statement today.

Hawaiian is flying the players, coaches and staff of the Raiders from Oakland to the following road games throughout the country during the 2011 regular season: Denver, Buffalo, San Diego, Minneapolis, Miami, Green Bay, and Kansas City. Hawaiian kicked off its premium service for the Raiders with an early September trip to Seattle for the team’s final preseason contest.

Hawaiian is flying the Seahawks’ players, coaches and team personnel to eight road games this season, including five cities in the Central and Eastern time zones: Denver, San Francisco, New York, Cleveland, Dallas, St. Louis, Chicago, and Phoenix.

Players are flown in a Hawaiian wide-body, twin-aisle Boeing 767-300 aircraft which has up to 264 seats. Players often take up to an entire row of seats, according to a Hawaiian Airlines written statement today. For each flight, Hawaiian provides a dedicated catering coordinator and a First Class menu which includes extra-large meals and sandwiches, and an assortment of healthy snacks such as fresh fruit, protein bars, along with products from Hawaii, such as local fruit drinks.