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Continental Air
adds five flights
for Houston-Oahu

The carrier also will be
using a bigger plane for its
Newark service to the isles

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By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Reacting to strong demand for Hawaii, Continental Airlines will add five nonstop flights a week to Honolulu from its Houston hub starting this spring.

The airline already has a daily Houston-Honolulu nonstop and the new service, using a 282-passenger DC-10 aircraft, will increase capacity into Hawaii by 1,410 seats a week, the airline said. The new service starts on May 2 and runs through Sept. 5.

Also on May 2, Continental said it will put a larger DC-10 into its daily direct Newark-Honolulu service, adding 40 seats a day. All of Continental's Hawaii flights now use a 242-seat DC-10. The airline will also use the bigger DC-10 model on its existing daily Houston-Honolulu and Los Angeles-Honolulu flights starting in May.

At the same time, Continental will increase its nonstop service between Hawaii and Guam, its primary hub in the Pacific. It will add one Guam flight each Monday and one each Wednesday to its existing daily nonstop service.

The airline said the increased service will permit convenient connections through Guam with Manila, Hong Kong, Bali, Australia and islands within Micronesia.

The new Houston-Honolulu service will be Flight 73, leaving Houston at 12:20 p.m. each Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

The existing seven-days service is Flight 1, leaving Houston at 9:40 a.m. The flight time between the Texas and Hawaii hubs is about 7.5 hours.

Ron Wright, Continental's Hawaii director of sales and marketing, said he increased service is in response to "overall market demand."

"Importantly, the additional flight will not only serve the heartland of Texas, its timing will also provide easy connections to many other popular business and vacation destinations throughout the Midwest, Southeast and Central U.S.," said Wright in a statement late yesterday.

Making those destinations easier for Hawaii residents to reach will also open new opportunities for mainland-Hawaii tourism, the airline said. Timing is part of that, since the departure in the middle of the day makes it easier for people to reach the Houston hub from other points, Continental said.