Hawaiian Airlines, fresh off an aggressive push into Asia, is now setting its sights on the Big Apple.

The state’s oldest carrier announced today it will begin nonstop daily service to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York beginning June 4 from Honolulu. The first return flight from New York will be June 5.

It will be the first scheduled service to the East Coast for Hawaiian and gives the state greater access to its second-largest tourism market. The only nonstop route being operated now between the New York area and Hawaii is Continental Airlines’ daily service from Newark, N.J.

For the route, Hawaiian will use one of the four new 294-seat Airbus A330-200s that will be delivered in the first half of next year. The in-air time between Honolulu and New York will be approximately nine hours eastbound and 10 hours westbound.

Mark Dunkerley, president and CEO of Hawaiian, said New York doesn’t represent a change of direction in Hawaiian’s growth strategy, but is simply a new opportunity for the airline.

"It’s an addition to our growth strategy," Dunkerley said from New York. "Over the next period, Asia is going to be featured most prominently in our future growth. But being the most prominent airline between Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast, which is the No. 1 visitor market, and now going from Hawaii to Asia, which is the No. 3 visitor market, it makes sense for us also to grow a presence in the No. 2 visitor market to Hawaii, which is the East Coast."

Until the New York announcement, Hawaiian had focused its mainland routes on 10 cities in the U.S. West. Hawaiian flies to the California cities of Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose, as well as to Las Vegas, Phoenix, Seattle and Portland, Ore.

Hawaiian is offering one-way introductory fares for the new service that match the area codes of the two destinations. The fare will be $212 (New York’s area code) for economy class and $808 (Hawaii’s area code) for first class. Tickets for those fares, which exclude taxes and fees, must be purchased by Sunday, and travel must be between June 4 and 30 of next year.

The flight from Hawaii will be aptly numbered Flight 50 ("Hawaiian 5-0"). It will depart Honolulu daily at 3:05 p.m. and arrive in New York City at 6:55 the following morning. Hawaiian Flight 51 from JFK will depart New York daily at 10 a.m. and arrive in Honolulu at 3 p.m.

Dunkerley said although there were several cities that Hawaiian could have chosen on the East Coast, the airline selected New York because it allowed Hawaiian to introduce its service to the most people.

"It’s clearly a very big city," he said. "There’s 20 million people in the metro New York area. Most of all, what we’re doing is we’re responding to what our customers have told us. They’ve told us they want to be able to fly between New York and Hawaii, and I know that sentiment is also shared by our employees."

Hawaiian, which celebrated its 82nd birthday on Friday, recently had targeted its expansion efforts in Asia by launching three new routes over a nine-month period that began in November 2010. Hawaiian plans to debut its fourth new Asian route — to Fukuoka, Japan — on April 16. Over the past year, Hawaiian initiated routes to Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport (November 2010); Incheon International Airport, near Seoul (January 2011); and Osaka, Japan (July 2011).

Even though Japan is Hawaii’s top international market, it represents the third overall Hawaii tourism market after the U.S. West and U.S. East, which also includes the U.S. Midwest. Other cities — besides Newark — with nonstop flights to Hawaii that are considered by HTA to be in the U.S. East are Atlanta (Delta Air Lines), Chicago (American Airlines, United Airlines), Dallas (American) and Houston (Continental).

U.S. East visitors to Hawaii rose only 0.8 percent, or by just 10,165 visitors, to 1.3 million through the first nine months of this year compared with the same period a year ago, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority. The U.S. West led the way with a 1.6 percent increase to 2.2 million visitors through the first nine months, while Japan was third in total arrivals with a 7.1 percent decrease to 933,834. HTA plans to release its October and year-to-date arrivals information during the last week of November.

HTA President and CEO Mike McCartney said Hawaiian’s new service from New York will add more than 107,000 new air seats annually to the state and generate an estimated $156 million in direct visitor spending and $17 million in state tax revenue.

"(It) will provide much-desired direct air service to New York City, making it more convenient and accessible for travelers from the East Coast," McCartney said. "This flight is of strategic importance to promoting the Hawaiian Islands brand to our second-largest market."

Dunkerley said even though Hawaiian has four A330s being delivered in the first half of next year, it takes about 11/2 airplanes to service its new routes to Fukuoka and New York.

"We have enough capacity coming in 2012 for probably one more new route," said Dunkerley, who would not reveal what other destination Hawaiian might be considering.

He said, though, that the New York flight wasn’t a steppingstone to Europe.

"The timing of our flight scheduled from New York to Honolulu and the return is optimized for people living in New York and Hawaii," Dunkerley said. "It doesn’t lend itself for connections from Europe. However, we have a great connection today (through Los Angeles) between Hawaii and Europe."