LIHUE >> Island Air bid farewell to Kauai nine months ago amid a companywide restructuring.

On Tuesday the state’s second-largest carrier returned with a new ownership group to a festive welcome.

Passengers were greeted with lei, hula dancers and musicians after Island Air touched down at Lihue Airport just after 7 a.m. on its first of six daily round-trip flights between Honolulu and the Garden Isle. Later, in special welcome ceremony, Kauai Mayor Bernard Carvalho entertained airline officials, business leaders and other guests by singing “Beautiful Kauai.”

“This is a very special day for us,” said Island Air President and CEO Les Murashige, who was born and raised on Kauai. “A year ago Island Air made a very difficult decision to discontinue service to Kauai. Since then the Island Air team has worked very hard to turn things around, and we’re back starting today.”

Island Air announced it will expand its service between Honolulu and Kauai starting April 1 with eight daily round-trip flights on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and seven daily round trips on Mondays. The airline plans to continue offering six daily round trips on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

In addition, Island Air said it will boost service between Honolulu and Maui to 10 daily round-trip flights on April 1, up from the seven it currently operates.

The airline has five 64-seat ATR 72s in its fleet.

While Island Air is increasing flights to Maui and Kauai, it will end its service between Honolulu and Lanai after March 31. The departure from that market, which was announced earlier this month, will leave Honolulu-Lihue and Honolulu-Kahului as the airline’s only two routes.

“It’s always a tough decision, but … we felt there was already enough lift to Lanai,” said Honolulu venture capitalist Jeffrey Au, who spearheaded a group of investors that purchased a controlling interest of Island Air in January from billionaire Larry Ellison. “There’s greater unmet demand flying to Lihue.”

Hawaiian Airlines, the state’s largest carrier, is the only other carrier with regular service between Oahu and Kauai. Hawaiian flies 17 to 18 round trips a day between Honolulu and Lihue.

Kauai resident Jackie Pudlo, who was at Lihue Airport on Tuesday morning to fly to Honolulu, said she chose Island Air because it had the most reasonable fare.

“Two years ago my husband and I came here on vacation (from the mainland),” she said. “We had flown Island Air at that time (on a connecting flight) from Oahu, and we fell in love with Kauai and ended up moving here. I feel it’s great that Island Air is back, because it gives a little competition. When there’s only one airline that’s flying interisland and you don’t have competition, they can pretty much charge what they want.”

Kauai County Council Chairman Mel Rapozo is hopeful the extra competition will bring down airfares.

“It’s a big day for us,” Rapozo said. “We’ve been basically held hostage for a long time on this island. Individually, as well collectively as a council, we’ve tried to reach out to our state representatives and our congressional delegation, and I’ll be honest, nothing can be done. It’s America. You set your price as high as you want, and as long as people are willing to pay, that’s what we suffered. It became real clear to me that Kauai didn’t matter to a lot of people because it was such a small market. When I heard there was going to be a chance we were going to get a (second) airline here, I was very happy. … I’m excited, the Council is excited, the mayor is obviously excited. Thank you for taking this leap of faith, because we need it on Kauai. We absolutely need it. Now it’s up to Kauai to keep you guys here. We all got to do that, or else it’s going to go away.”

Murashige said the airline will have to do its part as well.

“Everyone’s saying we want you (Kauai residents) first to support us,” Murashige said. “But for you folks to support us, we need to have frequency here, we need to provide on-time service, we need to be reliable and we need to do that on a consistent basis. If we can’t do that, then we don’t deserve your business. But we’re going to try very hard, and we’re going to make your customer experience at least one that feels friendly.”

Island Air, which is privately owned, began a concerted effort in September to become more transparent by issuing monthly operational performance reports. In February the airline said it had just one cancellation among its 670 scheduled flights and that 87.6 percent of its flights arrived on time, which is regarded by the U.S. Department of Transportation as arriving within 14 minutes of its scheduled arrival time. In January, Island Air had no cancellations out of 716 scheduled flights and a 93.8 percent on-time performance.

“If we continue doing what Island Air has been doing for the past few months, we’ll be fine,” Au said. “It’s to expand but at the right rate — not too fast, not too slow, finding the right balance, addressing what the market demand and customer needs are with the ability on the operational side to remain on time and reliable.”