Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — With increased travel demand between Pago Pago and Honolulu, the COVID-19 Task Force is looking to add two more weekly flights around July or August, as more local residents are eager to travel off island, including graduates heading to colleges and universities.

Information received by Samoa News indicates that flights out of Pago Pago to Honolulu are fully booked heading into July, as Hawaiian Airlines begins in June to operate weekly flights. There have been questions as to whether the governor will request Hawaiian Airlines for additional flights in the summer months — which are usually the busiest for travel to and from Hawaii.

And this was raised by the media during Monday’s task force virtual news conference with Lt. Gov. Talauega Eleasalo Ale, who acknowledged that “we are seeing the demand” for Hawaii flights.

He recalled that in past years — prior to COVID-19 in 2020 — Hawaiian Airlines operated two weekly flights and would add a third one for the busy summer travel months as well as towards the end of the year for the holiday season.

Talauega noted that starting in June, there will be weekly flights, “but based on the demand we’ve seen so far, we may start adding two flights a week. The initial outlook was to add those two flights per week starting in September. But based on the level of demand that we are seeing, we may have to start adding those flights in July or August.”

He reiterated what he said earlier in the news conference that “many of these issues are moving targets. It all depends on the virus, if we get another surge here, we may have to adjust slightly.”

“But that is the overall goal, to continue to move us forward, to get to some sense of normal, allowing travel back and forth [which is] helpful also in terms of our response to COVID — in terms of bringing in supplies as well as experts” here as there’s a big need and a big justification for that.

He advised the community to “hold on tight [as] we will be approaching this issue. Of course we have to discuss all of these plans” with Hawaiian Airlines to make sure that they have the aircraft fleet available for the additional flights.

In the past months since COVID, the governor has been making an advance request to the Honolulu-based carrier seeking approval for additional flights, given Hawaiian Airlines time to allocate crew, time, and aircraft.

Samoa News points out that while ‘flying out’ is said to be booked up, incoming flights to Pago are not mentioned. Hawaiian Air has long maintained its two flights per week to American Samoa is due to the demand of both — outbound & inbound passengers.

Audio from the news conference for this story was shared by a Samoa News local media colleague.