KAILUA-KONA — It’s official. Direct flights from Japan to Kona International Airport will resume no later than January 2017.
KAILUA-KONA — It’s official. Direct flights from Japan to Kona International Airport will resume no later than January 2017.
The federal Department of Transportation on Friday approved Hawaiian Airlines’ application to serve Honolulu and Kona from Haneda airport in Tokyo. The agreement takes effect on Oct. 30, however, the airline has 90 days from that date – or Jan. 29, 2017 – to begin the service.
Kona International Airport has not received a commercial flight from Japan since 2010 when Japan Airlines ceased the route.
“Hawaiian, and Hawaiian alone, requested the nighttime slot pair, and the Department finds that prompt approval of Hawaiian’s request is consistent with the public interest,” the DOT wrote Friday. The decision came just a week after Hawaiian requested DOT Sec. Anthony Foxx to immediately approve the application to provide service. The airline applied for the routes in April.
Hawaiian Airlines will fly between Kona and Japan three days each week and between Honolulu and Japan four days each week. The routes would be served with A330 aircraft capable of carrying 278 passengers in the first/business, extra comfort and main cabins.
The Honolulu/Kona service would be the second Haneda route operated by the airline, joining the Honolulu-Haneda daily service Hawaiian began in November 2010.
“This is tremendous news for Hawaiian Airlines, for our employees, our customers and for the economies of Kona and our entire state,” said Mark Dunkerley, Hawaiian’s president and CEO. “Flights between Hawaii and Japan are the most traveled and most beneficial to the U.S. economy, so being able to expand the number that we can offer to Tokyo’s Haneda airport is especially important. We have estimated that the Kona portion alone will generate $35 million in visitor spending and $12.5 million in wages and benefits.
The DOT must still decide which five of eight remaining applications by four U.S. air carriers for daytime slots at Haneda it will approve. Hawaiian has asked that its existing daily Honolulu-Haneda service be among those five. The slots were opened as part of a February agreement between the U.S. and Japan. Hawaiian has asked that its existing daily Honolulu-Haneda service be among those five.
“Securing the daytime slots for our existing Honolulu-Haneda route will optimize these scarce route rights, since no other application comes close to providing the benefits to the community, travelers and the economy when compared to our already successful service started six years ago,” Dunkerley noted.