After a years-long lobbying effort by Hawaii government officials and private organizations, federal authorities have agreed to re-establish a customs inspection station at Kona International Airport at Keahole to allow direct flights from Tokyo to Kona to resume Dec. 21.

Brian Humphrey, director of field operations for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said federal officials Monday inspected and approved a Kona facility that will serve as the temporary Federal Inspection Services site.

Customs inspectors will be flown from Honolulu to Kona three times a week to process passengers arriving on Hawaiian Airlines’ new Tokyo-to-Kona route, which will begin service Dec. 20 with a flight from Kona to Japan.

Regularly scheduled international flights to Kona began in 1996 but were discontinued in October 2010 after Japan Airlines discontinued its direct service from Tokyo’s Narita airport. Customs inspectors were then withdrawn from Kona because there was no need for them.

“The resumption of international flights to Kona will have a wide-ranging positive impact on Hawaii island and the state as a whole by boosting tourism spending, creating jobs and generating millions of dollars for our economy,” said Gov. David Ige in a statement.

Peter Ingram, executive vice president of Hawaiian Airlines, said the new route will generate $50 million in overall economic benefit to Hawaii, and Ige said the flights will produce $7 million a year in extra tax collections.

Hawaiian Airlines initially plans to serve Kona with three flights a week using the airline’s largest aircraft, an A330 that can carry up to 294 passengers, Ingram said. Hawaiian plans to modify some seats on those planes to allow first-class passengers to lie flat, which will reduce that slightly to 278 seats, he said.

But as demand grows, the airline will look at more frequent flights, Ingram said.

Ige said there is also interest in flights to Kona from other airlines and that he has met with officials from Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Korean Air. Increasing international air traffic to Hawaii “is a priority of ours that will move our entire economy forward,” he said.

Airport officials said the current Kona inspection site is a temporary hard-topped shelter, and work will be completed in the weeks ahead on $2 million in improvements. Those include installing security cameras, motion sensors and 10 passport kiosks, and upgrading restrooms.

The state has also committed to building a permanent inspection station at the Kona airport that meets federal requirements. That new station is expected to cost about $50 million, said Ross Higashi, deputy director for airports for the state Department of Transportation.

Ige said at a press conference Thursday that the number of international travelers to Hawaii each year has grown by more than 1 million since 2009, an increase of nearly 60 percent. As international tourism traffic to Hawaii continues to grow, Kona will be needed as a second “reliever” airport to ease congestion in Honolulu.

U.S. Sens. Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono and U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard also joined in the effort to re-open the inspection station in Kona, and each of them issued written statements thanking Customs and Border Protection for its assistance.