Hawaiian Airlines has announced that it will resume most U.S. mainland routes on August 1 when Hawaii rolls out a pre-travel COVID-19 testing program allowing visitors to bypass the state’s mandatory 14-day quarantine.
The carrier, which suspended most routes in March due to the coronavirus pandemic and the state’s subsequent quarantine order for arriving passengers, will also increase neighbor island flights to boost connectivity between Oahu, Kauai, Maui and the island of Hawaii this summer.
Hawaiian has been operating once-daily service between Honolulu and Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco to support essential flights and critical cargo transportation throughout the pandemic. However, the carrier began once-daily service between Honolulu and Portland on Wednesday and will add once-daily service to San Diego and Sacramento starting on July 15.
Beginning August 1, Hawaiian will reinstate nonstop service from a half-dozen U.S. mainland cities to Honolulu, including Boston, New York, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Jose and Oakland.
The airline will also resume select U.S. West Coast-to-neighbor island routes, including Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose and Sacramento to Kahului, Maui; Los Angeles and Oakland to Lihue, Kauai and Los Angeles to Kona on the Island of Hawaii.
With the additions, Hawaiian plans to operate an average of 252 weekly flights between Hawaii and the mainland U.S. and 114 daily flights within the Hawaiian Islands.
“The layered safety measures put in place to protect the health of our local communities promise to make travel to and from Hawaii more accessible than in recent months,” Hawaiian Airlines president and CEO Peter Ingram said in a statement on Wednesday. “We look forward to welcoming onboard guests who support and observe the protocols in place for responsible travel, including our visitors and kama’aina reconnecting with family and friends on the U.S. mainland.”
United Airlines also announced plans to resume service to more Hawaiian destinations in August, including Lihue from San Francisco and Hilo from Los Angeles.
