Continental Airlines adds Orange County-Maui flight, takes new Honolulu route daily

Continental Airlines is adding an Orange County, Calif.-Kahului, Maui flight to a previously announced expansion of its Hawaii flight schedule, set to begin in March 2010.

The four-day-a-week flight will be added to a new schedule of Continental Hawaii routes, first announced in October. The carrier will also bump up one of those new flights—an Orange County-Honolulu, Oahu route—from four-days-a-week to daily, and change its departure/arrival times.

Inaugural flights begin March 7, 2010.

The bad news for bargain fare hunters? As was the case with new Delta Airlines San Diego- and Detroit-Hawaii flights announced earlier this week, there were no introductory fares announced for the new Continental flights.

Flight days and times for the new/expanded Continental routes are:

• Orange County, Calif.-Kahului Maui

Departure: 5:20 p.m. (West Coast time)
Arrival: 8:05 p.m. (Hawaii time)
Flight days: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Lowest first-week fare we found: $923 one-way

• Kahului, Maui-Orange County, Calif.

Departure: 11: 10 p.m. (Hawaii time), (one hour later on Saturdays)
Arrival: 7:45 a.m. (West Coast time)
Flight days: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Lowest first-week fare we found: $923 one-way

Lowest first-week Continental Orange County-Maui round-trip fare we found: $1,338

• Orange County, Calif.-Honolulu, Oahu

Departure: 9 a.m. (West Coast time)
Arrival: 11:45 a.m. (Hawaii time)
Flight days: Daily
Lowest first-week fare we found:  $885

• Honolulu, Oahu-Orange County, Calif.

Departure: 1 p.m. (Hawaii time)
Arrival: 9:35 p.m. (West Coast time)
Flight days: Daily
Lowest first-week fare we found: $885

Lowest first-week Continental Orange County-Honolulu round-trip fare we found: $1,318

Tickets are available now for both routes at www.continental.com. Flights will be operate with 124-seat Boeing 737-700 aircraft.

Houston-based Continental Airlines also flies to Hawaii from Houston, New York and Guam.

If you find lower one-way or round-trip fares on any of these flights than the ones we did, please let other HawaiiMagazine.com readers know by leaving a comment here, or on our HAWAII Magazine Facebook or Twitter pages.

UPDATE, 4/13/2010: Though Continental did not initially announce the above routes as seasonal, they apparently are.The carrier plans to temporarily stop service on all of the above routes beginning Sept. 12, coinciding with the end of the busy summer travel season. The Orange County-Honolulu route will start up again on Nov. 20, and the Orange County-Kahului route on Dec. 16, likely in anticipation of Hawaii’s busy winter travel season.