Hawai'i gets expanded air service to Samoa

Associated Press

PAGO PAGO, American Samoa — Polynesian Airlines is adding a second flight between Samoa and Hawai'i this fall, the airline said.

The airline plans to launch the weekly flight between Apia and Honolulu at the end of October, after delivery of its second B-737-800 aircraft.

The Samoa government-owned airline resumed two weekly Hawai'i flights in November with the new, long-range B-737-800 series planes. But the airline reduced its flight schedule in early May to once a week so it could use the aircraft for its other Pacific routes, to New Zealand and Australia.

Toleafoa J. Nickel, the airline's Pacific Islands manager, said the anticipated second B-737-800 aircraft is scheduled for delivery toward the end of next month.

"We are doing very well with our Honolulu flights and have had to leave passengers behind because the flights have been so full in the last four weeks," Nickel said in a telephone interview from his office in Apia.