Friday 20 November 2009: Pacific Blue has added a fourth flight from Auckland to Rarotonga for the holiday season. The Thursday non-stop service departs Auckland at 6.30pm and arrives in Rarotonga at 11.25pm (previous day). The return flight leaves Rarotonga just after 1.00am, arriving into Auckland at 4.30am (the following day.)

The extra flight is in addition to the airline's regular Auckland-Rarotonga departures on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday.

Pacific Blue General Manager Commercial, Adrian Hamilton-Manns, said the fourth service had been added to provide more options for both leisure and family markets.

"With our connecting services from Australia, there is strong demand at this time of year from Cook Islanders returning home for the festive season," he said. "However there is also demand from Aussie and Kiwi travellers who are keen to enjoy Christmas or a holiday break in the tropics."

Cook Islands Tourism welcomed the additional service, with CEO John Dean noting that it would add over a thousand seats for the holiday season.

"Pacific Blue has a reputation for competitive fares and we're very supportive of anything the airline can do to increase capacity into the Cook Islands, especially from the Australian market which is showing increasingly strong growth."

The fourth service will operate from Thursday 10 December 2009 through till Thursday 28 January 2010.