Japan’s All Nippon Airways temporarily resumes service to Honolulu

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - All Nippon Airways resumed its services to Hawaii this week, but just temporarily.

Passengers at Japan’s Narita Airport were seen getting on board the airline’s Airbus A380 to Honolulu on Monday.

It’s just one of two roundtrips that the airline scheduled on its “Flying Honu” plane for this week.

It’s also the first time in more than a year that the A380s were used in a trip to the islands after they were grounded when COVID cases began to rise.

Known as the “Flying Honu,” the world’s largest passenger plane usually carries 520 people; however, due to restrictions, the first flight only carried about 180 passengers.

While the trips showed a small sign of normality, there is no indication that tourism from Japan to the islands will come back completely anytime soon.

In March of this year, Japan limited the number of inbound arrivals from foreign countries to less than 2,000 passengers a day.

The ministry also ordered foreign airlines to keep arrivals to below 100 people per flight.

ANA and Japan Airlines were asked to control arrivals to 3,400 a week.