Hawaiian Airlines to Launch Osaka Kansai Link

Hawaiian Airlines has confirmed that it will launch flights between Honolulu and Osaka Kansai International, its second destination in Japan and third in North East Asia. The new daily rotation will be introduced from July 12 and will be operated by a Boeing 767-300ER. The announcement is a massive boost for the Japanese market, which has seen numerous flight cancellations and schedule changes since the earthquake and tsunami hit the country on March 11.

Hawaiian first launched flights to Japan on November 17 last year when it inaugurated a daily link between Honolulu and Tokyo Haneda. According to the carrier this route already accounts for “approximately five per cent of the company’s revenue,” and unlike other airlines, it has no plans to cut capacity to the Japanese capital.

"While other airlines have announced service reductions to Japan, we have no plans to reduce our daily service to Tokyo, and we remain committed to launching new service to Osaka beginning July 12,” said Mark Dunkerley, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hawaiian Airlines. “It is clear from our current results that we are seeing a significantly less severe downturn in traffic than is being reported by other companies in the airline and tourism sectors. At the same time, discussions with our travel partners in Japan indicate that while a downturn is currently upon us, they expect a recovery in bookings after a short interval."

Members of Hawaiian's management team visited Japan late last month and had the opportunity to gauge the impact of the earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima powerplant developments on outbound travel from Japan. "The purposeful and business-like approach of Japan to recovering from these events is an example to us all. One cannot fail to be impressed by how quickly daily activity has returned to near normality in Tokyo and Osaka,” said Mark Dunkerley.

He noted that Hawaiian's Tokyo service serves primarily Japan-originating travelers who appear to be more inclined to keep their travel plans than are non-Japanese residents who had planned travel to Japan. "In the initial period following the earthquake, we saw a number of cancellations and no-shows but this activity has largely dissipated,” he said. “Looking ahead, we are seeing a slowdown in forward bookings for the next two months but current indications suggest a slightly less than 20 per cent decline in bookings over the next month compared to what we would have expected during this period.”

Approximately 2.5 million O&D passengers travelled between Honolulu and Japan in the past year with Hawaiian Airlines carrying just 27,000 (just over one per cent of the total) on its daily flights. There are currently more than 95 weekly flights into Japan from Honolulu offering almost 30,000 weekly seats.

Delta Air Lines and Japan Airlines already serve the Honolulu – Osaka Kansai route, each offering a daily rotation on the route. In total 466,000 O&D passengers travelled on the route in the past year, a 9.2 per cent increase on the previous rolling 12 months, with Delta holding a 44 per cent share of this traffic and JAL, including its former JALways subsidiary, 52 per cent. These two airlines dominate the Honolulu to Japan market, accounting for more than three quarters of the passengers flying to and from the Asian country. When you combine the figures for JAL and JALways, Hawaiian Air is still only the seventh largest operator in this market, a statistic it will hope to change with its latest network expansion.

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NOTE: Schedule data extracted from Flightbase for week commencing April 14, 2011; Traffic data extracted from IATA BSP system for the year ending January 2011.