Hokupa‘a – Hawaiian’s Fifth New A330 – Joins the Fleet
09-Oct-2011 Hawaiian Airlines' newest Airbus A330-200 aircraft made its Hawaii debut today following its inaugural flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu as Flight #1, arriving 25 minutes early at 11:10 a.m. The flight carried 293 passengers, one short of full capacity for Hawaiians' A330.
This is the fifth new A330 to join Hawaiian's fleet since June 2010, coinciding with its expansion into Asia and enhanced service for the airline's most popular routes in North America.
Mark Dunkerley, Hawaiian's president and CEO, commented, "Our growth strategy is on schedule and these new long-range aircraft are allowing us to expand internationally and boost Hawaii's tourism economy.
"Demand for Hawaii is strong in the Asia-Pacific region, so that's where most of our growth is focused. We recently launched three new Asia routes over an eight-month period. Our Sydney service is increasing to daily flights this December and we will be expanding into another new market with our Fukuoka service commencing in April. And there will be more good news to come as we introduce four more of these new aircraft next year."
Hawaiian's new A330 is named Hokupa'a, which is the Hawaiian language name for Polaris, or the North Star. Because Polaris never sets and appears fixed in the night sky as earth's north celestial pole, the star proved to be an invaluable guiding marker for the ancient Polynesians in their voyages across the Pacific to Hawaii. All of Hawaiian's new A330s are named for a constellation or star used by Polynesian voyagers for celestial navigation.
Hawaiian took delivery of Hokupa'a from the Airbus factory in Toulouse, France, this past Wednesday and flew the A330 12 hours nonstop to Los Angeles, demonstrating the long-range capabilities that the new aircraft brings to Hawaiian's growth strategy.
In addition, Hawaiian's wide-body, twin-aisle A330s seat 294 passengers - 30 more passengers than its Boeing 767-300 aircraft - adding nearly 11,000 more air seats annually to Hawaii's visitor industry with each new aircraft.
Hawaiian is scheduled to take delivery of four more A330s in 2012 and will have 13 of the aircraft in its fleet by the end of 2015.
Hawaiian plans to introduce up to 32 new Airbus aircraft into its fleet by the end of the decade. In addition to the five A330s already in the fleet, Hawaiian has confirmed agreements in place to acquire 12 more A330s and six A350XWB-800 (Extra Wide-Body) aircraft (starting in 2017), along with purchase rights for an additional three A330s and six A350s.