HB 072: How to Care for Hawaii with Daniel Chun of Alaska Airlines

**Automatically Transcribed**

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 0:00

So the definition of Malama, right? The Hawaiian cultural value of Malama is to care for or to nurture. And it's been something that's in you know, we deeply appreciate care is actually one of our core values. It's it's, it's one of the things that you know, we say is at the core of who Alaska Airlines is.

Bryan Murphy 0:19

In that is Daniel Chung, who is the Director of Sales Community and Public Relations, Hawaii for Alaska Airlines. And on today's episode, we learn all about Alaska Airlines, ongoing efforts with Malama, Hawaii, and how you can be a part of it on your next visit to Hawaii. Let's go.

Unknown Speaker 0:40

Aloha, welcome to Hawaii's best where we help prepare you for your visit to Hawaii. Here you'll learn what to know before traveling as we discover Hawaiian culture, local businesses, and the experiences that make you one of the most incredible places in the world.

Bryan Murphy 0:59

Hello, and welcome to episode 72 of Hawaii's best I am your host, Brian Murphy. And I am so glad that you have decided to tune in today, wherever you are. Maybe you're dreaming about your next visit to Hawaii, maybe you just came back from your visit. Or maybe you haven't been and you're planning your trip to Hawaii. And that is why this podcast exists. It helps you to be able to better prepare yourself and your family, or whomever you're traveling with on your visit to Hawaii. And today we're talking all about that. How visiting Hawaii and really visiting any place in the world is it's so much more than what we can take from an experience. But what can we bring in? What can we learn from these experiences. And many people whom I've talked to who listen to this podcast, or people who who have visited Hawaii often and really want to be able to give back or be able to learn more about the culture of why. And a lot of the initiatives coming from the Visitor's Bureau talking about Malama Hawaii or care for nurture for Hawaii is a lot of what some of these companies like Alaska Airlines are really wanting to lead with. And today we talk and learn about what Alaska Airlines is doing, and how you can get involved in your next visit to Hawaii. And it can be as simple as just signing this pledge, a pledge that we're going to be talking about with Daniel is called pledge to our keiki. And that's going to be the main topic of conversation, what the pledge to our keiki is and how you can get involved in that by simply just signing that pledge, and acknowledging your role in our role in helping care for Hawaii all together. Because chances are if you found this podcast and obviously you're listening to this episode, you love Hawaii, you care about Hawaii. And it's more than just a destination of experiences and just the destination to just unwind and unplug. It's so much more than that. It's a beautiful culture, which I'm sure you are well aware of. And that is probably one of the things that draws you to Hawaii. I know it does for me, listening and learning from people like Daniel Chun, and hearing about these initiatives like pledge to our keiki makes me all the more excited to be able to talk about it and get this type of information out there. More so than just you know, planning that excursion or going to that specific resort, which is all good and fun. But there's so much more than sitting on the beach sipping mai Tai's when it comes to Hawaii. And on today's episode, we're going to talk all about that I want to give you a brief overview of who Daniel Chun is and you hear a little bit from his words, but just some of his accolades and, and some of those things that kind of what he brings to the table in the conversation is Daniel Chan is the Hawaii Director of Sales Community and Public Relations for Alaska Airlines. He leads the airline sales, marketing, public affairs and community outreach efforts throughout the state of Hawaii. In 2019, Daniel was appointed to the Hawaii Tourism Authority Board of Directors by Hawaii Governor David egate, born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. John is a graduate of the University of Hawaii at Manoa with a bat killer of science degree in travel industry management. He studied commercial aviation and obtain his private pilot license, which is something I would love to do secretly and maybe one day, he obtained that from Honolulu Community College and the University of North Dakota. John was named as one of the Pacific Business News as 40 under 40, class of 2014, and inaugural business, a pride honoree in 2018. And one of the pineapple 20 in 2019 20 for the next 20 by Hawaii business magazine in 2016, the University of Hawaii at Manoa School of travel industry management Alumni Hall of Honor 2016 Award recipient and the list goes on and on. And I can't wait for you to hear more from Daniel Chung, as we talked about, plus your keiki and all about what Alaska Airlines is doing to Malama Hawaii. So let's go ahead and let's talk story with the annual chunk from Alaska Airlines.

Daniel, thank you so much for coming on Hawaii's best today. Everyone got to hear your bio and a little bit about you and your role at Alaska Airlines. But tell us a little bit more about yourself and kind of catches up to speed and what's new in your world?

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 6:26

Yeah, absolutely. First of all, Brian, thanks for having me on. So I'm born and raised here in the state of Hawaii, on Oahu. And you know, for all of your listeners that are local that are from Hawaii, you know, the age old question of what high school you're from is important. And so I'll answer that right off the bat. I went to Milan in high school, then went to University of Hawaii at Manoa graduated in trouble. And she managed it which is now part of this college, a Shidler College of Business. After that, you know, worked for the way visitors and convention Bureau did international marketing for them there had a great time just helping to promote this place that I'm from and then I love. Then after that went to work for the governor's office, I worked under the legal administration for her tourism liaison at the time. And that was about seven years of my life dedicated to just making sure that state government and the tourism industry have worked coordinated. And we're working together. And following that I was given the opportunity to work for Alaska Airlines around 2011 or so. So I've been with the company about 10 years now really representing Alaska here in Hawaii, helping to make sure that Alaska has a presence here, but also gets involved in the community gets engaged with the very many nonprofits and community groups that are so deserving and doing great work in our community.

Bryan Murphy 7:41

And that's a lot about what we're going to talk about today. And someone listening right now, thinking about Alaska Airlines in Hawaii, maybe a little bit about the history there. Because on the page is like okay, that's I love going to Alaska, Alaska is beautiful, but Alaska and Hawaii.

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 7:58

Yeah, you know, a lot of people think of Alaska Airlines is just serving the state of Alaska or just flying to Alaska, we still face that, you know, unique 90 years, actually this year. And still people think that about Alaska Airlines. And you know, for good reason. It's it's Alaska Airlines that's painted on the side of our airplanes, you know, there's the native Alaskan on the on our tails. But you know, we serve now about 120 destinations across the US and five countries. So US, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Belize. And our story here in Hawaii dates back actually 15 years, we make 15 years of service to the wine islands this year. But when we started our service on October 12 2007, we had actually wanted to fly to Hawaii for decades before that. We have stories of a flight attendant that actually was with us for 40 years at the time of when we started her service to Hawaii. And she remembers on her first day back in I think it was like 1967 that our then CEO told all of the employees of that point that we would soon be flying to Hawaii. And so it's just interesting that it took us all those years, all those decades to actually fly to Hawaii, but finally did it in in 2007. It's a really interesting story, actually, in terms of our growth in Hawaii. So if you might remember, you know, back in 2007, which is when we started it was, you know, right around the time of the Great Recession. And unfortunately, in 2008, Hawaii saw the loss of two major airlines, right Aloha airlines went out of business. And then ATA stopped flying as well. And so there was this massive gap of seats that were just dropped out of the market overnight. And so at that time, we had just started service to Hawaii. And we found ourselves in a position that we would then start to fill those lost seats in the market. And I think to this day, and I wasn't with the company at that time, but to this day, I know that the state of Hawaii and also you know, we hear it from many of our tourism partners, they do say that it was Alaska's presence in the market that really helped Hawaii to recover as quickly As it did, especially given the great recession was right there. And it was also really good story, obviously a good growth story for Alaska Airlines, being in Hawaii and being able to grow the market like we did.

Bryan Murphy 10:10

Gotcha. What are some of the main areas on the mainland that you guys serve as far as Alaska toy?

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 10:17

Yeah. So you know, we serve seven West Coast cities, non stop to four Hawaiian Islands. And so the seven are really Anchorage, of course, in Alaska. And then in the Pacific Northwest, we have Seattle and Portland. And then in California, we have San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego. So those are the seven that we fly nonstop. And again to the four major Hawaiian Islands, so KAWAII on Oahu, Maui, and then corner on Hawaii Island. So we make up about 20% of all flights now between the west coast and Hawaii. Okay, operating a summer peak of about 35 daily flights.

Bryan Murphy 10:54

Okay. In your role at Alaska, talking about this word Malama? Let's first define that word. Sure. Because I know it's it's been a word that the term embryo has got out there in front of a lot of visitors. But let's first establish the definition of Malama. And what Alaska is doing with that?

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 11:14

Yeah, so. So the definition of Malama, right on the Hawaiian cultural value of Malama is to care for or to nurture, and it's been something that's in, you know, we deeply appreciate care is actually one of our core values. It's, it's, it's one of the things that, you know, we say is at the core of who Alaska Airlines is. And so, you know, this idea of Malama, of taking care of the places that we fly to, especially because we fly to some of the most, you know, beautiful and bio diverse destinations in the world, Hawaii being included in that, of course, and so Malama is important to us. And it's something that we've really been focusing on, especially coming out of the pandemic, but even before then,

Bryan Murphy 11:57

also venture to say, Alaska to has pristine, the nature and the culture of Alaska to so Alaska Airlines is no stranger to Malama in Alaska, as well.

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 12:10

Absolutely, you know, one of our other core values is doing the right thing. And that means reducing the impact of air travel on the environment, especially because like you said, I mean, we fly to some of these really protected places, right, in Alaska, Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, the West Coast, actually, everywhere that we fly, right, I mean, and so we know that one of the biggest burdens comes from jet fuel emissions. And so our goal is to be the most fuel efficient domestic airline by 2025. And, you know, to get there, we're doing all sorts of things. But you know, we're upgrading our fleet to more efficient 737 aircraft and continuing to improve the efficiency of our operation. We've also charted a pretty ambitious course to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040. Through the use of sustainable aviation jet fuels. We also you know, really continue to be an industry leader in reducing in flight plastic waste. This is something that we're really passionate about horizon air, which is our sister carrier, our regional carrier, they started recycling in flight paper and plastic and glass weights back in the 1980s. I think it was probably before most people were recycling. And over the last decade, Alaska Airlines and horizon air, our flight attendants have captured tons of recyclables that would have otherwise gone to landfills. And so there's just this really strong focus on making sure that we operate sustainably

Bryan Murphy 13:31

kind of going off that a little bit. What are some inflight things that you guys are doing or have implemented recently?

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 13:37

Yeah, you know. So back in 2018, we were the first US airline to eliminate plastic straws and stirred sticks from our flight to lounges. And we also integrated compostable packaging and cutlery into our in flight service. So this year, we also pioneered a pre order system for fresh foods. So guests get their items they want on flights, minimizing waste of both food and packaging. And we also really encourage our guests to bring their own reusable water bottle with a campaign that we use a hashtag. It's a hashtag filled before you fly. So we're really encouraging our guests to help us to help the environment by by doing that. So you know, last year we eliminated one of the biggest sources of plastic waste on our flights, and that is plastic water bottles and plastic water cups. This giant step in this journey to reduce our impact on the environment removes 1.8 million pounds of single use plastics from our aircraft over the next year. And that's equivalent to about the weight of 18 Boeing 737 aircraft per year. Wow. And so you know, we're replacing those plastic water bottles on board with Box water. So box water is what they do is they package purified water in 100% recyclable cartons made from plant materials, and also the main cabin or flight attendants will pour water into recyclable paper cups. versus plastic, and that removes more than I think 22 million disposable plastic cups from our fleet. So really on this journey to make sure that we are reducing waste, taking all of the plastic as much as the plastic that we can off the aircraft.

Bryan Murphy 15:15

I love that. I'm just curious, maybe from a customer standpoint, what are some things that people have said about Alaska in regards to traveling to Hawaii that that they love?

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 15:25

Yeah, you know, I mean, one of the many things that they love is, so we really aimed to make travel as hassle free as possible, right. And also this idea of care. And I will say working for the company. Now for 10 years care isn't just a sort of marketing speak, it's it is intrinsic into who we are as a company, and just as an employee that works for Alaska. And so people do say time and time again, that they do feel cared for when they fly with us they feel cared for, you know, when they call our call centers, or they, you know, care takes different forms, right. I mean, care is about, you know, how you're treated on board, of course, you know, how how you feel when we might mess up, maybe even because, of course, you know, we're not perfect, right. And so when we mess up, and we make things better, you feel cared for that way. But the other form of care is how we anticipate your needs, how we make it easier for you to travel, how, you know, our mobile app is top notch, and you can get everything that you need done, you know, just through, you know, several clicks of a button or whatnot. And so that's very much about what people like about Alaska Airlines. And then I think just overall our commitment to our communities, our commitment to just being a good neighbor, you know, being a good company, in terms of, of what our impact is on the world. And that's, I think, in the end for me, like that's what has attracted me to this company, and and, and has made me believe in these companies so much.

Bryan Murphy 16:49

That's awesome. So one of the things that caught my eye with what Alaska Airlines is doing, starting to seeing this initiative kind of run out on social media. And this is really the reason I wanted to hear more about Alaska Airlines is pledge shark keiki. What is it? Why does it matter? Maybe let's just kind of get a 30,000 foot pun intended view of what pledge to our keiki is,

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 17:17

yeah, sure. So the pledge short, Katie was actually created by students here in Hawaii, two schools. One is the Malama Honua Public Charter School on Oahu. And then the other one was Akula school on Molokai II. So they wrote this about five years ago now, I think, and it's really to capture their views and hopes of how they would like visitors to experience and treat our island home while they're here. Right. And it's also displeasure. And the other reason why we really liked pledges, the pledge is also commitment to respect and care for the places that everyone calls home. So what we did was we partnered with an organization called cutover ye so Kaneohe, Hawaii is the organization that is actually stewarding this pledge. So once the students wrote, it's kind of Hawaii now. It's sort of I don't wanna say the keeper of it. But it is the steward of this shirt, this pledge now to try to get as many people to see and sign this pledge as possible. And so we partnered with carnival Ye, Connor was also the entity that plans every year, the Volunteer Week, Hawaii. And so as part of volunteer we kawaii, they set a goal to get 50,000 signatures for the pledge to our Katy, by the end of this year. And so what we really wanted to do was support that effort was support that goal by signing onto the pledge ourself, and then asking our guests to do the same?

Bryan Murphy 18:36

Sure. Let's unpack the pledge a little bit. What is it? And how can visitors be a part of that?

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 18:42

Yeah. So you know, we actually did a really fun activation to kick off of signing the pledge. So we did it on our special delight flight that we had. So we do these delight flights every month, where we pick a flight at random. And we surprise our guests with some like fun activation at the gate. We do, you know, fun things on board and whatnot. So we wanted to launch the signing of this pledge with this delight flight that we chose was San Francisco to Honolulu flight. This happened in April. And what happened was, we signed the pledge, we had this massive wall where it had the pledge written on it, we invited all over Yes, to go up and sign it, sign it to actually physically sign the pledge. And then we just, you know, basically had a party at the gate, had a party on on on board all sustainable, of course, and just really wanted people then to spread the word and tell their friends about this pledge. And so right now, we do have a special landing page for it if you just go to pledge to r k t.org. And I'm sure you'll have it posted later on, but it's a pledge to our keiki.org. And folks can go on they can read the pledge, they can, you know, just see if it resonates with you. Right, you know, I really hope that it does and just put your name to it because we're really trying to get 50,000 signatures by the end of the year, we're just right at the beginning of it so you can get in on the ground level we have I think, as of this recording, we have less than 1000 people signing onto it. So let's let's, you know, get it out there and read and get people to sign this pledge.

Bryan Murphy 20:14

I think it was that delight flight that kind of caught my eye. I'm like, you guys got give me a minor over there, hanging out, singing some songs. And like, you guys, that's awesome. So

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 20:24

it was awesome. Because you know, I told Kim EA about it. And she was like, This is awesome that you're doing this, I totally want to be a part of it. And so yeah, she she came out and performed for the folks that were at the gate, or guests that were at the gate. We had some of our employees that were dancing Hula, so our employees that are in San Francisco that, you know, some of them that's for somehow in the Bay Area, they came out and they they danced and of course Kimi, I told her this, she opened with her song, bamboo, bamboo, but like, it got stuck in everybody's head, like all of my coworkers are like for days and weeks afterwards. They're like, so

Bryan Murphy 21:04

that's awesome. This is a tangible, kind of going back to Okay, yeah. The borough is putting out Cape Malama. Hawaii, and but this is something that is super tangible for visitor, resident, local, anybody to kind of put really put their name towards and kind of back behind. Yeah,

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 21:26

yeah. So, you know, we have been partnering very closely with the Hawaii Tourism Authority and the white visitors convention Bureau, on getting the Malama Hawaii messaging out, right. I mean, because it's going to take all of us right to make sure that we are messaging our guests, messaging any prospective visitors so that they have in their minds, okay, like, this is what we want you to know, when you're coming to Hawaii, this is how we want you to behave. This is how we want you to respect the land, and the people and our culture and all of that. And so, we've been working really hard with to help to message that out, right, we put all of them along the Hawaii videos on board. We have before that there was the rooted series, there was the kuleana videos, we put all of those on board for our guests to be able to access and watch. And then also to all of our messaging, whether it be social or advertising or whatnot, we're really trying to message that, but there was a gap in our minds. And in terms of, you know, we can message all we want, but our guests actually hearing us, right? Are they understanding what we're trying to tell them about? And and do they agree? Do they do they want to help? Right? Do they want to act differently? Do they want to sort of think about this place visiting Hawaii differently? And so this is where the pledge comes in for us, right? The Pledge allows us to say, hey, you know, we want you to Malama Hawaii, but we just want to acknowledge that shirt that you understand. Right? And so this gives them an opportunity to to see and, you know, dollar paper, okay, this is what the pledge is, this is and this is a pledge that's written by our kids, right by our students, not by the visitor Bureau, not by some marketing entity. This is these are kids that want you to, to respect the land like this. Right. And so that's where I think it helped us to fill that gap. And then the other gap that we we sort of recognized was that once you signed this pledge, then what right? How are you going to actually take care of this place? How are you going to help us right, and so last year, we entered into a partnership with an organization called traveled to change. And our childhood changed does is they helped to connect visitors with volunteer experiences throughout the Hawaiian Islands. And so what it does then is it makes takes that pledge makes Malama actionable, right? It says, Okay, well, you want to do something you want to help us Malama Hawaii, this is how you do it, you can sign up to, you know, work in a law II or if you don't want to work in a law ECOSOC, you know, it's pretty involved. If you've ever worked in the low E, you know that maybe you might want to do a tour, you know, to learn more about the culture, or you want to just do a beach cleanup, or you want to do whatever it is. There's many activities now that are being carried on Traviata changes platform, and you can easily go on, take a look at what's happening on each island. Put in your dates that you're going to be here and very easily figure out okay, I'll take I'll take a half day to do something like this. Yeah, right.

Bryan Murphy 24:24

Right. Because you're gonna schedule that sunset cruise, you're gonna get on to the website, it's, you know, scheduled a sunset cruise or whatever. So this is like, this is probably the most important step really, is going to make the I like to say it's gonna make that my tight, tastes even sweeter. You know,

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 24:38

and it's really interesting. I mean, I think every single one of them, you know, I use sort of my co workers that live on the continent as sort of test cases here, right? I mean, so when they come in, and they do sort of, like Malama activity, right, traveller change activity. They have all said that it's probably one of the most memorable things that they've done on or during their visit. sec, right? Because yeah, you know, laying on the beach and having the Mai Tai and relaxing and reading a book and what all that that's all great, right. And you should continue to do that. But really the this, like deeper experience that you have by actually, you know, getting involved doing something with the land with our people also just, it creates this, this deeper understanding and much more richer experience.

Bryan Murphy 25:27

So you go to pledge to our keiki.org. And you fill it out. And once someone is there, does it kind of leak out to those volunteer opportunities?

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 25:36

Yeah, absolutely. We wanted to make sure that both the pledge and traveler change were connected and so cool. Once you sign the pledge to our keiki, what it will do is the next screen, which will give you basically an option to say, hey, you know, now you can turn your pledge into action. And it has these very convenient buttons where you can click, you know, Oahu, or Maui or Kauai or Hawaii Island. And you can click on that. And then you can it'll then take you to basically the platform of childhood or change, you can put in your dates that you're going to be here in Hawaii. And you can see what's what's available during that timeframe.

Bryan Murphy 26:11

Love it. Okay, so but for everyone who is listening to this right now, be it next week, today, a year from now, do that go to pledge to our keiki.org. But anything before we go, anything else that you would think would be helpful for someone coming to Hawaii?

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 26:29

Yeah, you know, I just think that it's super important that we all work together, both in the visitor industry, in our community businesses, that we all work together to make sure that we are educating our visitors in the right way to behave while you're in Hawaii, but also to respect that this is someone's home, right. And I think most visitors have that sensitivity and sensibility about Hawaii. Yeah, and we just want to make sure that everyone else that might not have thought about it quite as, as deeply, you know, sort of thinks about it now in that way. And partnerships like with kind of Hawaii and the place to work at and travel to change and all of those very many businesses that are really working on this along with the Hawaii Tourism Authority and the hpcd. We're all really trying to work together to sort of pivot the destination towards a more regenerative future.

Bryan Murphy 27:27

Great. I think that's a great way to kind of frame and hang our conversation. Daniel, I thank you so much for your time and what you do not only with Alaska Airlines, but more importantly, and I think we all heard for Hawaii and and really the children of Hawaii keiki of Hawaii. So thank you so much.

Daniel Chun - Alaska Airlines, Hawaii 27:49

Thank you, Brian. Mahalo,

Bryan Murphy 27:50

Ma. Well, I just want to say a big Mahalo to Daniel for coming on the podcast today. And to go to sign that pledge, all you got to do is go to Kona hawaii.org. That's K NU hawaii.org/alaska-pledge. And go ahead and sign up today. Also, be sure to check under the description of this podcast episode of and more information and links that we talked about within today's conversation with Daniel. Thank you so much again for listening all the way through this episode. And I hope that it brought you value and I would love to hear from you if you have a topic idea for an upcoming episode. Love to hear what you would love to learn more about or maybe there's a business or someone out there that you would love to hear from them and their story or perspective, you can go ahead and reach out to us at contact at Hawaii's best travel.com And until next time, be well. Aloha.

Unknown Speaker 28:58

Mahalo for listening to this episode of Hawaii's best. If you are enjoying the podcast, please take a moment to leave a review on Apple and a rating on Spotify. To stay up to date on future episodes. Please subscribe and visit us and Hawaii's best travel.com Until next time, we hope

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