Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Hawaiian Airlines will increase the number of weekly flights to and from Pago Pago for its “winter seasonal” (north of the equator) flights between December 2018 and January 2019 — and the extra flights are starting much earlier than usual.

In past years, Hawaiian had added extra flights for the Christmas holiday during the second week of December as well as the first week of January of the New Year. The Honolulu based carrier usually operates an average of three or four extra flights that time of the year.

This time around, Hawaiian is starting the extra flights during the first week of December. And extra sections — a total of six — will operate on Sundays: Dec. 2, 9, 16 and 23 in 2018 and Jan. 6 and 13 in 2019, according to the schedule provided by airline spokesperson Alex Da Silva.

Flight times for the extra sections are the same as the current Mondays and Thursdays arriving in Pago Pago around 9:20p.m. and departing two hours later.

Da Silva said the Pago Pago schedule for December and January is already reflected on the airline’s online booking system.

The Christmas and New Year’s holidays are always a very busy time for flights between Honolulu and Pago Pago when Samoan livings in the US head home for the holidays.

And during the summer months, the Honolulu-based carrier also adds a third weekly flight to and from Pago Pago. This year, the extra section operates on Tuesdays and runs through later this month of August.