Hawaiian Airlines began its daily, nonstop service between Honolulu and Tokyo’s Haneda Airport yesterday.
The inaugural flight to Haneda was preceded by festivities at the boarding gate at Honolulu International Airport featuring Hawaiian music and hula, a Japanese cultural dance performance called Utage, a traditional Hawaiian blessing, and the giving of fresh flower lei to the passengers.
Haneda represents the most significant international expansion ever for Hawaiian and starts the company on a course for future growth to other major Asia markets, as it begins to add new and longer- range Airbus A330s and A350s to its fleet. In January, Hawaiian will launch nonstop service, four times weekly from Honolulu to Seoul-Incheon in South Korea.
To meet the service expectations of Japanese travelers on its new Haneda service, Hawaiian is offering a customized, culturally designed presentation of its inflight service, featuring new pan-Asian cuisine, Japanese entertainment options, and special onboard products.
Earlier this year, Hawaiian was one of only three U.S. airlines to win government approval to service Haneda Airport with international flights, and is launching its operations months ahead of the other two. In addition, Hawaiian is the only U.S. carrier offering flights between Haneda and Hawaii. The Haneda service is expected to provide a boost to Hawaii’s visitor industry with the addition of approximately 100,000 new air seats from the state’s second-largest tourism market.
Hawaiian’s Flight #457 departs Honolulu International Airport daily at 6:05 p.m. and arrives at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport at 10:05 p.m. the following day. Starting November 19, Return Flight #458 will depart Haneda daily at 11:59 p.m. and arrive in Honolulu at 12:05 p.m. the same day. (Tokyo is 19 hours ahead of Honolulu and the flight crosses the International Dateline.)
Hawaiian will initially serve the Haneda-Honolulu route using its wide-body, twin-aisle Boeing 767-300ER aircraft, which comfortably seats up to 264 passengers with 18 in Business Class and the rest in Economy Class. Hawaiian plans to introduce its new and larger 294-seat Airbus A330-200 aircraft onto the route at a later date.
For more information, visit www.HawaiianAirlines.com.
