The addition of the daily Monday through Friday flight is in response to the popularity of the airline's Saturday and Sunday direct flights between Denver and Honolulu, according to Tom Healy, United's managing director of sales for the mountain region.

United started the weekend service Feb. 2. The five added flights would bring more than 1,200 additional people to Oahu each week, giving a boost to the Island's still-struggling economy.

"What we found with the Saturday and Sunday flights was that there were more people connecting via Denver than we expected and we believe that will translate through to the seven-day service," Healy said.

Many passengers from the Midwest and Rocky Mountain states ­ including Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, North and South Dakota and New Mexico ­ prefer to fly through Denver rather than flying to the West Coast to connect to a Honolulu flight, he said.

Before the inauguration of the nonstop Denver-Honolulu weekend service, passengers from those states who flew through Denver had to change again on the West Coast for the flight to Honolulu, Healy said.

"Now Denver residents or people who can get to Denver can fly to Hawai'i much easier and more quickly, and that will cause them to consider Hawai'i for their winter vacation," Healy said. The Denver-Honolulu flight takes about seven and a half hours, Healy said. Passengers can make connections to about 40 cities from Denver, he said.

The new flights will use Boeing 767-300 aircraft with 244 seats. Flight 43 will depart from Denver at 11:45 a.m. and arrive in Honolulu at 4:12 p.m. Flight 44 will depart from Honolulu at 11:30 p.m. and arrive in Denver at 9:07 a.m. (All times are local times.)

Saturday and Sunday flights will continue to be operated in larger Boeing 777 aircraft with 348 seats.