Southwest Airlines is adding nonstop flights to Hawaii from three more cities, including its first two outside California.

The airline, which launched service to Hawaii in March 2019, on Thursday announced new nonstop service from Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles beginning in June. Southwest has major operations in each of the cities.

Introductory one-way fares start at $129 each way from Los Angeles and $159 each way from Las Vegas and Phoenix, but don’t expect to find those deals on peak summer travel dates given surging summer travel demand.

“We’re building on an era of affordability that Southwest initiated for Hawaii air travel,” Southwest Chief Commercial Officer Andrew Watterson said in a statement. “These new flights bring Hawaii service closer to more of our customers who live near airports across the West, and make it possible to choose Southwest to fly between the Aloha State and cities as far east as Nashville, without spending an entire overnight in the air.” 

The airline already offers nonstop Hawaii flights from five California cities: San Diego, Long Beach, Oakland, San Jose and Sacramento and is adding flights from several of them, too.

Southwest had always planned to offer flights to Hawaii outside of California but they were delayed by the Boeing 737 Max grounding and then the coronavirus pandemic, which decimated travel.

On the airline’s earnings call in April, Southwest President Tom Nealon said demand to Hawaii is picking up.

“And we’re finally at a point where we can get our Hawaii flight schedules up to where we hoped we would be a year ago before the pandemic,” he said.

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