Asiana Airlines will launch additional flights to Hawaii, Seattle, and other North American destinations from July 10 to cope with the bulging number of vacationers during the summer. The airline had originally scheduled to start the new flights on July 21, the air carrier said recently.

The air carrier will also expand the number of flights to twice daily to Cebu, The Philippines, from June 18 to Aug. 26 to handle the increased number of vacationers heading to the Southeast Asian city known for its beach resorts and excellent weather. Korean Air maintains one flight daily to Cebu, while Asiana currently operates four flights per week to the Philippine city. Jin Air runs twice weekly, Philippine Air flies four times weekly, and Cebu Pacific maintains a daily flight to Cebu. 

The airline is set to expand the number of its flights to Hawaii to one a day from July 10. Korean Air flies two times daily and Hawaiian Airlines flies four times per week. Competition among the three airlines will intensify during the summer with the increase in the number of flights.

Asiana has also decided to schedule one flight daily on its Incheon to Seattle route from five weekly flights starting July 10.

On the Hawaii and Seattle routes, the air carrier will deploy A330 jet passenger planes equipped with 239 economy class seats and 29 business class seats. Asiana officials said they were able to increase the flights to these routes thanks to the early delivery of the new planes.

An official of Asiana’ s Seoul branch, said the Cebu line is short with many incentives to be given, dashing any concern of an excess supply of air seats, showing the airline’ s positive outlook for the air route.

In the meantime, Asiana increased the number of flights to Danang, Vietnam, to three flights per week from two as of May 30 with the Double Mileage Promotion program.

The Double Mileage Promotion will be given to passengers on flights between Incheon and Danang, Vietnam, who are members of the Asiana Club effective until June 30. For example, when a member of the Asiana Club flies to Danang from Incheon in economy class, he or she will be given 7,488 miles in bonus mileage, although the actual mileage is 3,744 miles.

Asiana also plans to introduce charter flights from Incheon to Saipan from Aug. 1-25 with a jet passenger plane equipped with 177 seats flying twice daily on Wednesdays and Saturdays as a package tour of three nights and four days or four nights and five days. The airline also plans to reopen flights to Saipan from Busan starting June 13 on Wednesdays and Saturdays, a route that has been suspended.

This year is the 20th year since Asiana first opened its route to Saipan and the airline hopes the route will be reinvigorated this year as the airline has been running two flights weekly from Incheon and is the only Korean airline flying to the destination from Incheon for the past two decades.

The route’ s load factor is 80 percent even during the off-season, resulting in good sales figures.

The Marianas Tourism Agency has a plan to celebrate the 20th anniversary of flight service jointly with Asiana, which will be shown on the Homepage of the airline on June 9. #