Isle-China flights OK’d

Star-Bulletin staff

Northwest Airlines Corp. today won approval to start service between Honolulu and China, but the airline said it is too soon to say when, or even if, it will start the route.

Currently, there is no direct link between Hawaii and China. Northwest, which now flies Detroit-Beijing and Detroit-Shanghai with a total of nine flights a week, received U.S. Department of Transportation approval today to make those services daily. At the same time, Northwest got its first rights to China service from Honolulu.

However, Dennis Mollura, the airline's representative in Washington, said Northwest now has to consider the best way to allocate its resources and a decision has not been made on the Hawaii-China service.

The Transportation department approved a total of 17 additional weekly round-trip flights to China to the three U.S. carriers already in that market, Northwest, Federal Express Corp. and UAL Corp.'s United Airlines.