Passengers arriving for Hawaiian Airline’s inaugural non-stop daily flight to Oakland, California were greeted by song, lei and a Hawaiian prayer Thursday at Honolulu International Airport. Hours earlier a similar scene was played out at the airport in Oakland.

“Finding ways to get people from the Bay area and Oakland in particular to Hawaii more expeditiously helps them to come and visit and helps our economy,” said Hawaiian CEO Mark Dunkerley, who was in Oakland to greet passengers as they boarded a Boeing 767-300 in route to Honolulu.

Oakland becomes the tenth city in the Western U.S. served by Hawaiian and begins to fill a hole that was left behind when ATA and Aloha airlines stopped flying early last month after filing for bankruptcy. The departure of the two carriers resulted in the loss of 1.1 million annual airline seats to the islands.

Blaine Miyasato, Hawaiian's vice president of customer services, said the new flight to and from Oakland will add 95,000 annual airline seats to Hawaii. “The bookings on Oakland are just phenomenal,” he said. “It's an extremely important market to Hawaii.”

213 passengers boarded the flight from Oakland Thursday, nearly 81% of the 264 seats available on the flight. The plane from Honolulu was just as full with 220 passengers onboard.

Rose Weight, an East Bay resident on the flight from Honolulu to Oakland, said Hawaii is still considered “paradise” by many West Coast residents. “That's the primary spot to go at least once or twice a year,” said Weight, who was visiting relatives on Oahu.

Dan Steckbeck, another passenger on the flight to Oakland, still considers Hawaii a bargain. “Because of the favorable exchange rate here,” said the Oakland native, “versus going to Europe where it’s a $1.50 on the dollar.”

Despite adding nearly 100,000 annual airline seats to the state, Hawaiian’s new Oakland route represents only 9 percent of the total number of seats that were lost when Aloha and ATA went out of business.

Last month Governor Linda Lingle told Khon2 her administration is aggressively lobbying existing airlines to fill the void left by the two bankrupt carriers.

In October Alaska Airlines is scheduled to start daily non-stop service from Seattle to Honolulu, Seattle to Lihue, and Anchorage to Honolulu.

Andrew may be reached at apereira@khon2.com or ph. 591-4263.