All Nippon plans
to fly Oahu-Tokyo

The company hopes to start
twice-weekly service in October

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

All Nippon Airways Co., Japan's second biggest airline, plans to start Tokyo-Honolulu service in October, flying a 392-passenger Boeing 747 on the route twice a week.

ANA, which has been flying a daily Nagoya-Honolulu service since February last year, has long wanted a route to Hawaii from Tokyo but wasn't able to get one under the previous U.S.-Japan aviation agreement.

A new bilateral pact reached in January opened the door and ANA said it has applied to the Ministry of Transport in Japan for authority to operate the new service. While that formal approval is needed, the deregulation this year allows ANA the freedom to decide its routes and the number of flights it has.

In anticipation of approval, the airline announced a schedule starting Oct. 4 that calls for a round-trip flight each Sunday and Wednesday.

ANA operated three flights a week from Nagoya to Honolulu but dropped the route in March 1993 because it didn't have the aircraft to boost the service to daily. After boosting its fleet, it returned last year with daily service.

ANA said today it has been getting good business out of Nagoya from the central Japan area and, because of its big connecting network, from the rest of Japan as well.

It promoted the destination in an advertising campaign as "ANA's Paradise Hawaii."

But the airline has often said it would like to fly Osaka-Honolulu and Tokyo-Honolulu. It has not yet announced an Osaka service although the aviation agreement would allow it to fly it.

ANA will start its Tokyo service just as one of the big American carriers in Japan-Hawaii service, UAL Corp.'s United Airlines, cuts off its daily Osaka-Honolulu flight.