HONOLULU – Hawaiian Airlines is celebrating ‘Lei Day’ by offering fresh flower lei and live Hawaiian musical entertainment to customers arriving on select flights at its Honolulu hub today as well as travelers transiting Terminal 5 at New York’s JFK International Airport, where Hawaiian operates its daily nonstop service to Honolulu.
Earlier today in New York, employees of Hawaiian and the Polynesian Cultural Center joined forces to promote the tradition of lei and travel to Hawaii with an appearance on Good Morning America and visits to other morning shows and travel media outlets in New York. In addition to presenting fresh lei to TV hosts and writers, the team is promoting a Facebook quiz that allows visitors to learn a little about lei and discover what type of lei matches their personality. Facebook users can visit www.facebook.com/HawaiianAirlines to take the quiz and be automatically entered to win 140,000 HawaiianMiles – enough for two round trip tickets on Hawaiian’s daily non-stop service between New York and Honolulu.
Lei Day in Hawaii originated in 1927 with an idea popularized there by artist and writer Don Blanding, a mainland U.S. transplant who was taken with the Hawaiian custom of weaving, wearing and giving flower lei. It became an official holiday in Hawaii in 1929, the same year Hawaiian Airlines introduced commercial air travel among the Hawaiian Islands.
About Hawaiian Airlines
Hawaiian has led all U.S. carriers in on-time performance for each of the past nine years (2004-2012) as reported by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Consumer surveys by Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure and Zagat have all ranked Hawaiian the highest of all domestic airlines serving Hawai‘i.
Now in its 84th year of continuous service, Hawaiian is Hawai‘i’s biggest and longest-serving airline, as well as the largest provider of passenger air service from its primary visitor markets on the U.S. mainland. Hawaiian offers nonstop service to Hawai‘i from more U.S. gateway cities (11) than any other airline, along with service from Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, American Samoa, and Tahiti. New nonstop service will begin between Honolulu and Taipei, Taiwan on July 9, 2013 and, subject to government approvals, between Honolulu and Beijing, China in April 2014. Hawaiian also provides approximately 160 jet flights daily between the Hawaiian Islands.
Hawaiian Airlines, Inc. is a subsidiary of Hawaiian Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: HA). Additional information is available at HawaiianAirlines.com. Follow updates on Twitter about Hawaiian (@HawaiianAir) and its special fare offers (@HawaiianFares), and become a fan on its Facebook page (Hawaiian Airlines).