HONOLULU – October 24, 2012 - Travelers from Hawai‘i and the U.S. mainland wanting to visit Australia’s “Sunshine State” will have some extra schedule options in the spring of 2013, with Hawaiian Airlines’ announcement today that 18 special flights have been added to its nonstop service schedule between Honolulu and Brisbane.
The special flights are in addition to the thrice-weekly service that Hawaiian is launching from Honolulu to Brisbane on November 27, and coincide with deliveries of additional new Airbus A330-200 aircraft to Hawaiian’s fleet, which will free up existing Boeing 767-300 aircraft for the expanded service.
Of the 18 additional flights, 10 will operate next March, with four in April, and four in May.
“We are delighted with the strong demand for our service from Australia, in particular from the Queensland market,” said Peter Ingram, Hawaiian’s executive vice president and chief commercial officer.
“With additional aircraft capacity now becoming available between March and May, we have the added opportunity not only to increase the number of seats on the Brisbane route during this period, but also to explore some different schedule options for the future,” Ingram said.
The 18 special flights will depart Honolulu in early afternoon, allowing travelers from Hawaiian’s North America gateways in Seattle, San Francisco, Sacramento, Las Vegas, and Phoenix to begin their trip in the morning and make a seamless one-stop connection to Brisbane via Honolulu.
Complete schedule information for the special flights is available online at HawaiianAirlines.com.
The 18 special flights are the newest initiative taken by Hawaiian to grow the Australia travel market. Hawaiian’s impending launch of scheduled service between Honolulu and Brisbane will bring to 10 its number of weekly departures from Australia, with daily flights from Sydney using 294-seat A330 aircraft and three flights weekly from Brisbane using 264-seat B767 aircraft. This is double the number of departures that Hawaiian offered last year at this time, when five flights weekly were offered from Sydney using B767 aircraft.
The 18 special flights next spring will add more than 4,700 new air seats to the Australia-Hawai‘i travel market.
Hawaiian is launching scheduled service to Brisbane on November 27, with Flight HA 443 departing Honolulu at 10:20 a.m. every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, crossing the international dateline, and landing in Brisbane at 4:00 p.m. the following day.
Beginning November 28, the return flight HA 444 will depart Brisbane at 6:35 p.m. every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, cross the international dateline, and arrive in Honolulu at 8:05 a.m. the same day.
Hawaiian will operate its Honolulu-Brisbane service offering the comfort of its wide-body, twin-aisle Boeing 767-300ER aircraft, seating 264 passengers in a two-class cabin, with 18 in Business Class and 246 in the Main Cabin.
Hawaiian will be the only U.S. carrier flying to Brisbane, capital city of the State of Queensland, which is known as the Sunshine State. Brisbane is centrally located on Australia’s east coast and is the gateway to the world-famous Great Barrier Reef, world heritage listed rainforests, the iconic Outback territory, and the renowned leisure destinations of Australia’s Gold and Sunshine Coasts.
Brisbane also serves as a key hub for onward travel throughout Australia. Hawaiian has timed its flight schedule so that travelers can connect with same-day flights throughout Queensland and to other states through an interline partnership with domestic carrier Virgin Australia.
Tickets can be purchased online at HawaiianAirlines.com, by calling Hawaiian’s reservations department toll-free at 1-800-367-5320, or through any professional travel agent.
About Hawaiian Airlines
Hawaiian has led all U.S. carriers in on-time performance for each of the past eight years (2004-2011) 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 83rd 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, American Samoa, and Tahiti. New nonstop service will begin between Honolulu and Sapporo, Japan (October 30, 2012), Brisbane, Australia (November 27, 2012), and Auckland, New Zealand (March 13, 2013). Hawaiian also provides approximately 170 daily jet flights 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).
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