WestJet Airlines of Canada said it plans to expand its seasonal service to Hawai'i starting next month with as many as five additional weekly flights.

In a news conference at the Outrigger Reef on the Beach hotel yesterday, WestJet CEO Sean Durfy said the carrier will begin adding new flights from Canada to Honolulu, Kona and Kahului on Nov. 15 and hopes to have as many as 23 weekly flights to the islands by the middle of December.

The company will eventually reduce the weekly flights to about seven by summer, he said.

The low-cost carrier currently operates about 18 weekly flights to Hawai'i.

The expansion comes as passenger capacity to Hawai'i from the U.S. West Coast has stagnated because of high fuel prices and the twin failures this spring of Aloha Airlines and ATA Airlines.

"There's a lot of gloom and doom out there," Durfy said.

"The good news is that we're adding frequency to the Hawai'i market."

WestJet, based in Calgary, has been flying to Hawai'i for three years and began year-round service two years ago, Durfy said.

Canadian visitors make up the third-largest market for Hawai'i tourism, behind the U.S. Mainland and Japan. Thanks to a robust Canadian economy and a strong Canadian dollar, visitor arrivals from Canada have remained strong, and it is the only major market that is up this year.

According to figures provided by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, 234,000 Canadian tourists traveled to Hawai'i during the first eight months of this year, an 8.6 percent increase from the year-earlier period.

Canadians stay an average of 12.8 days during their Hawai'i vacations, the longest of any major group of visitors. They spent an average of $150.30 per day in the first eight months of this year.

Although that was up 1.8 percent from the same period a year earlier, Canadians remained among the lowest spenders of the major visitor groups.

By contrast, Japanese spent an average of $276.60 per day in the first eight months of this year.

"With their economy as strong as it is, our biggest challenge is to get the air seats to the islands," said state tourism liaison Marsha Wienert.

"The new flights will allow us to meet our goal of continuing to increase the number of visitors out of that market."

Founded in 1996, WestJet is a low-cost carrier with more than 7,500 employees. The company, which flies Boeing 737 aircraft, operates 350 flights a day and has a 38 percent share of Canada's domestic market.