Posted on: Thursday, June 21, 2001

Hawaiian adding Seattle-Maui route in 2002

By Michele Kayal
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawaiian Airlines will begin flying nonstop between Seattle and Maui every day starting in February 2002, making it the first carrier to offer that service.

The airline will deploy its new Boeing 767 aircraft on the route. In the past, Hawaiian has flown Seattle-Maui on a seasonal basis, and has stopped in Honolulu on the return flight. No other airline has offered daily, nonstop service on the route before, tourism executives said yesterday.

Hawaiian has been expanding its West Coast-Hawai'i service, most recently launching a San Diego-Honolulu flight that began last week. The airline is also considering offering a San Diego-Maui service, if it finds demand strong enough to support the service, said Hawaiian spokesman Keoni Wagner.

The Seattle-Maui service comes as the Valley Isle struggles with tourism numbers. Those numbers are flat so far this year, and the outlook is dim for the coming months. The Seattle market is one of Maui's primary focal points, and although the service won't start until next year, Maui executives said they were pleased by the news.

"It's definitely going to have a huge impact if they're able to fill the planes," said Charlene Kauhane of the Maui Visitors Bureau. "And February is a time when people from the Pacific Northwest traditionally come to Maui. They couldn't have started it at a better time."

Wagner said Hawaiian is confident in the Maui market despite its soft numbers, and noted that the efficiency of the new aircraft and the fact that it can fly nonstop to Seattle, give the route potential.

"We see increased demand in the market," Wagner said. "We're about to take delivery of an aircraft that is much better suited to this route than those in our current fleet and the combination of factors make it the right time to start."