Hawaiian to add nonstop Tokyo flights

Hawaiian Airlines is back in expansion mode.

The state’s largest carrier, which dropped two Japan routes over the last 17 months, said Monday it plans to expand service to Tokyo with nonstop daily flights between Narita International Airport and Honolulu beginning July 22.

The new route aboard Hawaiian’s 294-seat Airbus A330 aircraft will complement Hawaiian’s daily service between Honolulu and Haneda International Airport. Many business travelers prefer Haneda over Narita because it is closer to the Japanese capital, but airfares to Narita generally are less expensive than to Haneda.

“We’ve had the pleasure of carrying more than 800,000 visitors between Haneda and Honolulu since the launch of our daily A330 service more than five years ago,” Hawaiian President and CEO Mark Dunkerley said in a statement. “With average load factors routinely exceeding 90 percent (capacity), it is clear Japanese travelers have chosen Hawaiian as their carrier of choice when visiting our beautiful islands.”

Narita will be the airline’s 11th international destination and its fourth route in Japan. Hawaiian launched service from Honolulu to Haneda in November 2010, Osaka in July 2011 and Sapporo in October 2012. Hawaiian ended service to Fukuoka in June 2014 and to Sendai in September of this year.

The new route marks Hawaiian’s first international expansion since it began flying between Honolulu and Beijing in April 2014.

Hawaiian expanded aggressively over a period of several years but then began to pull back by canceling service to Taipei, (April 2014) and Manila (August 2013) besides Fukuoka and Sendai.

Hawaiian’s flights to Narita will depart Honolulu daily at 3:30 p.m., cross the international dateline and arrive at Narita at 7 p.m. the following day. Beginning July 23 the return flight will depart from Narita at 9 p.m. and arrive in Honolulu at 9:55 a.m. the same day.

“Japan is Hawaii’s largest international market with arrivals from the market making up 18 percent of total arrivals to the state in 2014,” Hawaii Tourism Authority President and CEO George Szigeti said in a statement.

Since the weakening of the yen, however, there has been a drop-off with Japan arrivals to Hawaii through the first 10 months of this year down 0.9 percent, and spending off 10 percent.

Szigeti said Hawaiian’s daily flight from Narita to Honolulu is forecast to generate an annual $130 million in visitor spending and $14.7 million in state tax revenue.

“With the recent announcement that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is looking to expand pre-clearance operations at Narita, this flight will provide additional service from one of our core markets,” Szigeti said.