In October, Hawaiian Airlines will begin a twice-weekly, nonstop service between Kahului and Las Vegas.It is a competitive market, said Executive Vice President Peter Ingram at Kahului Airport on Wednesday morning, but avoiding the hop to Honolulu is expected to give Hawaiian an edge with Mauians flying to the ninth island.Mayor Charmaine Tavares welcomed the additional service, “not only because our people love to go to the ninth island not just for fun but because a lot of us have families there.This will be a good way to stay connected to our families.

Hawaiian just began a nonstop Kahului-Oakland link, and it will re-introduce a seasonal nonstop Kahului-San Diego flight next Thursday. That will add around 50,000 seats for this summer, as visitor traffic picks up slightly, although still nowhere near what it was in 2007.Worldwide, airlines are expected to show net profits this year, according to the International Air Transport Association. That is a somewhat unexpected turnaround from 2009, when they lost billions.But most American carriers are among the many still operating in the red. That does not include Hawaiian, which is ramping up a long and expensive expansion.The addition of two new Airbus A330 planes gives Hawaiian “a little more flexibility” in choosing markets, Ingram said. Las Vegas has long been a favorite destination from the islands, and well-served from Honolulu. Hawaiian will be using a 260-seat Boeing 767-300 for the new Maui-Las Vegas route.

Regular fares have not yet been announced, and there will probably be some promotional offers at the outset, but Hawaiian is counting on convenience to alter the travel habits of Mauians. The first flight will be Oct. 3.Not only will the flights be direct, but they have been timed to deposit Maui travelers at McCarran International Airport at 4:30 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays, giving visitors a chance to get checked into hotels and still have a full evening of leisure ahead of them.

The return flights to Kahului will take off at 9:25 p.m. Sundays and Wednesdays. For about half the year, the departure times will be listed an hour earlier to account for daylight savings time.Hawaiian is not the only airline expanding its island links. The migration of airplanes to Hawaii during a recession requires some explanation.Airlines have long claimed that they have a hard time making money flying to Hawaii. Since leisure travel is discretionary, there is price resistance on fares, even though Hawaii is a favorite destination.

In addition, many travelers cash in frequent flyer miles to make their island getaways, so they do not provide carriers much cash.However, Ingram says that since the collapse of Aloha and ATA airlines, which had a big part in ushering in Maui’s tourism woes in 2008, leisure travel, and especially leisure travel at the higher end, has held up better than anyone expected. In particular, it has held up better than business travel.Airlines prefer business customers when they can get them, because they generally pay more. But business travel has shrunk dramatically on the Mainland.Other airlines had a choice of parking planes in the desert or shifting them to routes where they think they can find passengers, including Hawaii.They have done both,Ingram said.

In some ways, Hawaiian has less flexibility than other carriers, since it has one end tied to Hawaii. On the other hand, Hawaii has proven to be a desirable place to fly recently.The company is holding its own. During the first quarter, it flew somewhat fewer seat-miles and through May has carried about 25,000 fewer customers than last year  3.3 million.But it has an enviable and improving load factor of 84.3 percent, which means most of the seats it hauls are earning money.In the first quarter, it showed a razor-thin profit of $200,000 on sales of nearly $300 million.For an American airline, that was outstanding.Communications Director Keoni Wagner said that controlling costs is essential, but one of the biggest  fuel, 24 percent of all expenses last year – is mostly beyond the airline’s power to do much about. Hawaiian’s fuel expense is up 45 percent over last year, but it is still much below where it was two years ago.