Hawaii’s tourism industry has been stunned, in a good way, by the decision of Hawaiian Airlines to commit $4.4 billion over a decade to buying two dozen new jetliners.

Hawaiian, which already had a newer fleet than Aloha, has decided to buy long-range jetliners from Airbus rather than Boeing, extending its potential range on nonstop flights.

With Airbus A300-200s, the first arriving in 2012, Hawaiian can fly to Paris or London, or deeper into Asia.

It can easily fly nonstop to East Coast airports with no nonstop service to Hawaii, such as Logan, JFK, or BWI.

If you were told that Hawaiian wouldn’t disclose its destination choices, that’s wrong — Hawaiian has no idea what cities it will fly to, for the very sensible reason that by 2012 so much can change that any decision made today would have to be rethought then.

But London, Paris, or Rome all sound good if the euro stays as strong as its current record high, since that makes Hawaii a really good deal for Europeans.

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