Hawaiian Airlines started selling tickets Wednesday for its inaugural service between Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport and Kona that will begin with a Dec. 20 departure from the Big Island.
The three-times-a-week route marks the first scheduled service between Japan and Hawaii island since October 2010, when Japan Airlines ceased operations there in conjunction with the company’s government-backed bankruptcy restructuring. Japan Airlines had offered the daily flight between Tokyo’s Narita Airport and the Big Island since June 1996 — the only direct flight linking Japan and the Big Island.
Hawaiian, which has been flying daily between Honolulu and Haneda since November 2010, received approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation in May to provide three-times-a-week service between Kona and Haneda and service four times a week between Honolulu and Haneda as part of a DOT reallocation and expansion of U.S. routes to the airport near central Tokyo.
The additional Honolulu-Haneda service will start Dec. 21 and complement the existing route that flies between the two destinations. The DOT is still deciding which applications from other U.S. carriers it will approve for daytime slots, and Hawaiian has urged the DOT to confirm its existing daily Honolulu-Haneda service among them. Hawaiian will operate a 294-seat Airbus A330-200 aircraft on the Haneda routes.
“Since launching our first daily service to Haneda six years ago, Hawaiian has had the pleasure of carrying nearly 1 million visitors to Honolulu,” Hawaiian CEO Mark Dunkerley said in a statement. “We are excited to offer … a second flight option from Haneda, the option to fly nonstop to Kona, and our new nonstop daily service from Narita launching later this month.”
Hawaiian’s new daily Honolulu-Narita route will start July 22, and represents the airline’s fourth nonstop destination to Japan. Besides the Honolulu-Haneda route, Hawaiian began flying to Osaka in July 2011 and Sapporo in October 2012.
Hawaiian previously had routes serving Sendai and Fukuoka but canceled them due to low demand.
Hawaiian was awarded the split Kona-Honolulu route by the DOT after being the only U.S. carrier to apply for the one available nighttime Haneda slot.
Hawaiian will depart Kona at 5:05 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and arrive at Haneda at 10:05 p.m. the following day. The return leg leaves Haneda at 11:55 p.m. on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays and lands in Kona at 12:15 p.m. the same day. The Honolulu-Haneda flight departs Oahu at 5:30 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays and arrives in Haneda at 10:05 p.m. the following day.
The return leg leaves Haneda at 11:55 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and arrives in Honolulu at 11:55 a.m. the same day.
