8 Jul 2014

New flights for Pacific in pipeline

8:49 am on 8 July 2014

A group is looking to start flights between the west coast of the United States and American Samoa.

Pago Pago, American Samoa

Pago Pago, American Samoa Photo: Wikipedia

The Governor's office says it was recently informed of the group's plans, and are now awaiting a formal proposal.

The group is looking at starting two flights a week from the west coast to Pago Pago with future plans to extend flights to other Pacific islands.

Aside from inter island carriers, Polynesian and Inter Island Air, the only other airline that flies to American Samoa is Hawaiian Air, which operates two weekly flights from Honolulu.

Meanwhile the governor is awaiting a response from the Hawaiian Air CEO, Mark Dunkerley, to requests he made in a meeting with senior airline officials last month.

The governor has not disclosed what the requests were, but last month travel agents said that there weren't enough flights to meet the demand for travel from Pago Pago to Honolulu.