Hawaiian Airlines begins inaugural flights to Maui
The new daily service is seen as a complement to its Honolulu boardings
A Hawaiian Airlines plane took off Wednesday morning for the company’s inaugural flight from Long Beach Airport to Maui’s Kahului Airport.
The airline’s new daily nonstop service to Maui will complement its daily service to Honolulu, to which the company has offered travel routes out of Long Beach Airport since its inaugural flight in June 2018.
“Our airport is a powerful economic asset for our city,” Mayor Robert Garcia said in a Tuesday statement. “These new flights provide valuable connectivity for both our regional residents and travelers wanting to visit Southern California.”
Because the Aloha State’s travel restrictions require all coronavirus tests be administered by specific providers, Hawaiian Airlines partnered with Worksite Labs, a Long Beach company, to operate its own dedicated testing site from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily.
The new flights come as Long Beach continues to make progress in its vaccine rollout. As of Tuesday, 135,838 doses had been administered, and 90,476 of those have been first doses.
And residents, who have been cooped up at home throughout the coronavirus pandemic, were eager to spread their wings and venture to the Valley Isle. Passengers boarding the flight were adorned with leis to celebrate
the occasion.
One such passenger, Sunny Cure, a Mission Viejo resident, was joined by her best friend, daughter, mother and aunt for a six-day trip to Maui. Cure was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014 and the disease has metastasized in her body.
Doctors have given her one month to live. So she planned the trip to spend quality time with the “beautiful women in my life.”
Booking her trip on the inaugural flight, Cure said, just happened to be the first service to Maui’s Kahului Airport.
Other airlines are also expanding service from Long Beach to Hawaii.
Southwest Airlines will have its inaugural flight from Long Beach to Maui today. The company already flies to Hawaii out of Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento and San Diego, but the flights out of Long Beach will be Southwest’s first direct routes from the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
“We are thrilled to offer all these new choices for our travelers,” Long Beach Airport Director Cynthia Guidry said in a statement. “With the new flights and our easygoing experience, we are a traveler’s top choice for starting a Hawaiian vacation from Southern California.”