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> It's insane to me that the vast majority of inter-island travel in Hawaii (an archipelago where generally each island is visible from the next) is via jet aircraft.

Why jets? In the Caribbean, where distances are longer, turboprop aircraft are standard for island hopping and I thought these made more economic sense for short distances.

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Passenger load. They do use prop planes on routes with less passengers.

Pretty much, I've done the Seattle-Vancouver hop in a 737 and that's only 130 or so miles.

Throughput. There’s enough people going from one island to another, that is cheaper on pilots to have one bigger plane than several smaller ones, and it’s easier to fit into the limited number of slots for take off and landing.

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