Things are looking up for the state's beleaguered visitor industry, with Continental Airlines becoming the latest carrier to announce plans to expand nonstop service between the Mainland and Hawai'i next year.

Continental said it will launch four-day-a-week service between Orange County and Maui on March 7. In addition, the airline said it will increase the frequency of its previously announced flights between Orange County and Honolulu to daily service from four times a week. That service also is set to begin March 7.

"We continue to see solid demand for travel to Hawai'i," Jim Compton, Continental's executive vice president of marketing said in a news release.

"We are operating the new flights with the right-sized aircraft for the market and are confident this new service will be a success."

The news comes on the heels of Delta Air Lines' announcement last week that it will begin nonstop flights to Honolulu from Detroit and San Diego in June. The San Diego flight will be daily starting June 3, while the Detroit flight will be on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday beginning June 2.

And Alaska Airlines last month announced that in March it would launch nonstop service to Maui and Kona from San Jose, Calif., as well as nonstop flights to Maui from Sacramento. The San Jose-Maui flights will be three times a week, the San Jose-Kona flights 4 days a week, and the Sacramento-Maui flights seven days a week.

Those flights are in addition to nonstop service to Maui and Kona from Oakland Alaska Airlines started in November.

In September Hawaiian Airlines said it would begin daily nonstops from Oakland and San Diego to Maui on June 17. Hawaiian also said it will add another daily flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu on that day. The carrier will use a 294-seat Airbus A330-200 for the flights.

Continental will use a 124-seat Boeing 737-700s for its new service, while Alaska Airlines is using a larger Boeing 737-800 with 157 seats.

Delta is using its 183-seat Boeing 757 for the San Diego-Honolulu route. The Detroit-Honolulu route will be flown by the Airbus A330, which has 243 or 298 seats depending on the model.