United pilots of Tokyo jet leaving

By Kelly Yamanouchi
Advertiser Staff Writer

United Airlines is planning to use a smaller plane on a Honolulu-Tokyo route and, as a result, will move some of its pilots out of Hawai'i.

There are about 60 United pilots based in Hawai'i, and many fly Boeing 747-400 aircraft, according to United spokesman Joe Hopkins.

The only 367-seat 747-400 that United uses out of Hawai'i flies to Tokyo, but the airline will substitute a smaller Boeing 777 with 276 seats on that route starting March 12, Hopkins said.

"We're going to be making some changes," Hopkins said. "It's a reduction in seats but it's an effort on our part to better manage seat capacity with projected demand."

Many in Hawai'i's tourism industry believe that a war with Iraq could cause a dramatic drop in the number of visitors, especially among those from Japan who are sensitive to safety issues.

The reassignment of the last United 747-400 jumbo jet away from Hawai'i means that over the next 60 to 90 days, pilots who fly the aircraft will be moved to other cities served by United. Meanwhile, pilots of Boeing 767-300s, a plane used on certain United routes to the Mainland, will be based here.

Hopkins said the changes won't result in any layoffs but he did not have information on how many pilots would replace those in Honolulu.

While reducing certain seats out of Japan, United this week increased flights between Denver and Honolulu from just weekends to a daily schedule.

Also, starting March 30, United and All Nippon Airways will jointly begin flights between Osaka and Honolulu through a code-sharing agreement. United will add another weekend flight on Saturdays from San Francisco to Honolulu in April and May.