United Airlines United Airlines will boost its mainland-Hawaii service in February to run more flights than it had prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.
boosts flights
to West Coast
Increased services will
begin featuring a direct route
from Denver to HonoluluBy Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.comThe airline will add direct Denver-Honolulu flights for the first time and reinstate some canceled San Francisco and Los Angeles flights to Honolulu.
Starting Feb. 2, United will run a direct Denver-Honolulu flight each Saturday and Sunday, using Boeing 777 aircraft that carry 348 passengers.
"It's a natural connection," said Thomas Renville, United's managing director for Hawaii.
Hawaii residents who like to ski will be able to go directly to Colorado and quickly get on the slopes, and those who like to get away from the Colorado winter will have quick access to Hawaii, Renville said.
He also said there are a lot of students from Hawaii going to college in Colorado who would like a direct link.
United's Hawaii service was not cut back nearly as much as some other routes following Sept. 11, Renville said.
"We reduced pretty minimally. We kept all the neighbor island flights," he said.
Now the airline is stepping up its service. On Feb. 15, United will bring back two "red-eye" flights from Hawaii to Los Angeles and San Francisco, increasing its West Coast service by 25 percent, to four flights a day between Hawaii and those cities.
The Honolulu-Los Angeles flight, a Boeing 767-300 carrying up to 244 passengers, will leave Honolulu at 11:20 p.m. and arrive in Los Angeles at 6:39 a.m. Departures from the mainland will be at 11:30 a.m.
The Honolulu-San Francisco service, using a 182-passenger Boeing 757-200, will leave Honolulu at 11:55 p.m. and arrive at its destination at 6:53 a.m. The Hawaii-bound flight will leave San Francisco at 7 p.m.
United has 17 flights a day between the mainland and Hawaii, and one Japan-Honolulu flight a day. Soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, it cut two flights a day from California to Hawaii.