HNL is far more than a tourist destination. There are heaps of business conferences there, especially for trans-Pacific companies. It is also a vibrant cargo market with seafood & produce exports and tech imports.
How easy would it have been to put an Airbus on this route? CX is stupid, never thinking out of the box. They just left this one sitting there waiting for Hawaiian to pick it up. If you enter now, there will be a huge fare war, and no one will make money (but at least we all go to Hawaii on holiday for cheap).