Hawaiian Airlines' passenger traffic grew 10.7 percent during a year that saw the demise of Aloha Airlines and ATA Airlines.

The state's largest airline said it flew 7.86 million passengers in 2008, up from 7.09 million a year earlier.

The increased passenger traffic came as Hawaiian added planes and flights after the twin shutdowns of Aloha and ATA. And Hawaiian is continuing to expand, adding a third flight between Honolulu and Las Vegas that will run four days a week starting Feb. 23.

Aloha, the state's No. 2 carrier closed March 31 because of soaring fuel prices and a two-year fare war initiated by go! airlines, a unit of Phoenix-based Mesa Air Group.

ATA, one of the state's largest transpacific carriers, filed for bankruptcy and stopped flying several days after Aloha's closure.

Hawaiian added four jets to its interisland fleet this year. The carrier also added four aircraft for its trans-Pacific service in late 2007, which boosted its overall traffic last year.

The additional capacity resulted in a decrease in the airline's load factor. Hawaiian said its planes flew 82.6 percent full last year, down from 87.3 percent in 2007.

For the month of December, Hawaiian said its passenger count increased 13.5 percent to 644,538 from December 2007's 567,940.

The load factor for the month was 79.5 percent, which was down 2.6 percentage points from the year-earlier's 82.1 percent.