Samoa Airways Plans To Fly To LAX

By: Ben Schlappig

Published: August 14, 2019

25 comments

While I’m skeptical of this actually ever happening, American Samoa governor Lolo Matalasi Moliga has indicated that Samoa Airways plans to launch flights to Los Angeles International Airport. The airline is owned by the government, which would explain why a government official is making a statement about a new route for the airline.

He says that to get around US cabotage rules, the flight would operate from Apia to Pago Pago, pick up the territory’s passengers, and then return to Apia, before continuing to Los Angeles. That’s quite a process.

Currently there are no flights between Samoa and the US mainland, though Hawaiian Airlines flies between Pago Pago and Honolulu, and Fiji Airways flies between Nadi and Honolulu via Apia. Both routes are operated with limited frequencies.

Now, the challenge here is that this flight would cover a distance of ~4,800 miles, and Samoa Airways doesn’t have a plane capable of operating the route. The airline has a fleet of four planes, including a single 737, as well as three turboprops.

That one 737 is just leased from Malindo Air, and is expected to be returned at the end of the year. Furthermore, the airline was supposed to get a 737 MAX 9, but that order has been canceled following the groundings of the 737 MAX

So while this route sounds cool, it sure seems like there are some significant logistics standing in the way of this being a reality, not the least of which is lack of available aircraft.

In fairness, Samoa Airways’ predecessor, Polynesian Airlines, also briefly operated flights to Los Angeles using 767s.

There is a significant Samoan population in the US mainland, and California alone has over 60,000 Samoans.

The problem is that there wouldn’t be much business demand here, and it would be a very price sensitive route. While I suppose a once or twice per week flight might work, the logistics and costs associated with it just make this questionable.

Then again, perhaps this wouldn’t be about turning a direct profit on the flight, but rather would be about serving the community.

Do you think Samoa Airways will launch flights to LAX?

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Peter Suaniu Guest

September 1, 2019, 3:12 am

Samoa is wanting to attract more tourists from the American market to Samoa via a direct APW-LAX route; especially to utilise Sheraton's Samoan hotels worldwide booking systems. Tourism now accounts for about 30% of Samoa's GDP and the government wants to make it 40% within five years. The only way they can do this is through more flights. The upgraded international airport now has more capacity to take flights and SAA dearly wishes to get more flights into the country. Fiji Airways flies direct Nadi-LA so Samoa wants to do something similar for its tourism industry. Boeing's Max-9 incompetence has directly affected Samoa Airway's growth this year. In my opinion, SA should switch to Airbuses from now on. If it can assist American Samoans on the LA route, that would be good too as it's all about bums on seats. The more demand, the better.

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fonoti faamaligi Guest

August 17, 2019, 4:03 pm

we need to find anything cheaper then the Hawaiian air offer, is so expensive to from AS to Honolulu. its the same distance from Lax to Hnl. we need to open up the route to all other carrier. if they interesting, that will help our Territory for travel to the mainland. But we need to built up our island like Hotel so the people will like to come and stay. buit up our tourism and clean up our territory, used the funds from united states to built up roads,hospital is a jokes, theres a lot of things need to change at territory our Fono need to vote for the right and qualify person instead of family and friends, raise the government pay, I can not believe the pay is still not even $5. I know cost of living is low but price of food is expensive and price of gasoline high than mainland . the price of automotive is way high, when ask people about their payment I never pay that much here in the state. they take advantage of our peoples, what I see when I was back 2017 the island is full of drugs and surprise me what I heard about some of those peoples involved are our high officer, our Public safety department need to hire qualify people have experiences , there's lots of money from the united states to help built our territory but they all goes to general funds that's wher they start corrupted, our road is so bad, I love to move back home but I kind na scare our hospital is not in good standard, hope in the near future everything will get better. I love our territory cause we own our land but the government need to do their parts start from governor and his administration, our judge dept need new people there so corrupted, they give too many chance to those committed same crime, like rape, abusive, etc, our judge need to put there feet down and do their job, especially those who rape, or abusive young girls. put them where no sun shine,

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DaveS Member

August 15, 2019, 6:55 am

@Peter, maybe I should have said "relatively" difficult to get to American Samoa. For a person in Hawaii it might be a simple matter, but to get to Hawaii takes a connection for me, so that's at least three flights to get to American Samoa. If Samoan served LA, I would have the option to do the trip with a single connection. It is the LA-Samoa non-stop service that would be really nice to see, and that nobody else seems to want to offer.

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Nick Member

August 15, 2019, 3:22 am

American Samoa used to be a Pan-Am stop in the old days. One of the first Intercontinental hotels was right there in Pago Pago. However, calling Samoa upmarket is a stretch. There are no full-service hotels or resorts in American Samoa, which is basically a third-world country suffering from American colonialism and corrupt, incompetent local leaders who benefit from feudalism (the upper house of the territorial legislature is only for tribal/village chiefs and non-racial/ethnic Samoans are prohibited from owning any property). Samoa, the independent country, is marginally more developed with some NZ and Australian tourism. But American Samoa has nothing to offer except the world’s busiest McDonald’s. You can’t even get fresh fish anywhere.

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Richmond Guest

August 15, 2019, 2:00 am

It would be great if the route take off. It's quite expensive to get to Samoa from Europe. You can find cheap flights to AU/NZ but then onward flight to Samoa cost almost the same as the long haul from Europe.

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