JAS unit plans
Hawaii flights

Star-Bulletin staff

A Japanese charter airline is about to start Hawaii service similar to flights its parent company, Japan Air System Co., dropped in 1993 when the market turned sour.

Harlequin Air, formed earlier this year as a charter-only subsidiary of JAS, today said it will have 10 flights from Japan to Honolulu and the Big Island between February and March next year.

The company is expected to provide additional charter flights later in the year but details on the frequency of the schedule were not available late this morning.

Gov. Ben Cayetano, who was to join Harlequin officials this afternoon to formally announce the service, said the 10 flights -- with a seating capacity of more than 2,700 -- will boost the local economy.

Six of the flights will be to Honolulu, four to Kona, he said.

"Harlequin Air's charter flights from Japan will make it more convenient for families and elderly travelers to fly directly to Kona and Honolulu," Cayetano said.

Hiromi Funabiki, chairman of Harlequin, said the company has plans to operate 100 international charter flights a year from cities in Japan that aren't near the country's big international airports.

"The company's establishment stems from a very simple idea -- what could be done to make overseas travel more convenient and simple for everyone, such as the people who are not located close to the traditional major international airport, such as Narita or Kansai?" Funabiki said in a statement.

"For these people, as well as for others such as senior citizens, families with small children and those who have never traveled by air before, the lure of overseas travel had always beckoned through books and pictures, but fulfilling this desire and actually experiencing the overseas locations was not as easily achieved," he said.

Harlequin will use DC 10-30 aircraft, configured to hold 276 passengers, for the Hawaii service.

A California air crew recruiting and training company has been advertising for several months for pilots for the upcoming Harlequin flights. The DC-10 pilots would be based in Honolulu.

JAS said last year it wanted to get back to Honolulu.

For several years it had operated three charter flights a week, connecting Honolulu with Nagoya.