Japan Airlines is requesting a fare increase of about 10 percent for travel between Japan and Hawai'i and other overseas destinations.

The airline's parent company, JAL Group, filed the rate-hike application yesterday with the Japanese Ministry of Land Infrastructure, Transport & Tourism, citing an "extraordinary increase in operational costs."

Under the proposed fare hike the price of a round-trip restricted economy class trip from Tokyo to Honolulu would rise to $3,035 from $2,759 when converted to dollars from yen under the current exchange rate. A round-trip business class trip would rise to $4,983 from $4,527.

The fare hike, which would take effect Oct. 1 if approved, comes at a time when Hawai'i's tourism industry is suffering from a drop in visitor arrivals. For the month of June, overall visitor arrivals fell 14.2 percent from the same month a year earlier, while arrivals from Japan fell 10 percent, according to data released by the state.

A separate tally by Japan Airlines showed a nearly 9.9 percent decline in the number of Japanese visitors flying to Hawai'i during a traditional summer vacation period from Aug. 8 to 17 compared with the same 10 days a year earlier, said JAL spokesman Stephen Pearlman. The number of air seats available to Hawai'i dropped even more — down 13.2 percent, during the period.

The number of overall international passengers carried by Japan Airlines during the 10-day period fell by 9.6 percent from a year earlier, while the available air seats fell by 4.6 percent.

The JAL data show a marginal increase in the number of Japanese travelers staying in Japan for their summer vacation. The airline said JAL Group domestic vacation passengers totaled more than 1.4 million this summer, 0.3 percent more than last year. The Hokkaido and Okinawa Islands routes were particularly popular, the airline said. The increase happened even though 31 flights had to be canceled because of thunderstorms that affected part of the vacation period.

The JAL Group said it operated an additional 78 flights on domestic Japan routes to key vacation destinations this year. Last year, it operated 63 additional flights over the same period, Pearlman said.

Not all the Hawai'i news was bad. Pearlman noted that load factors on almost all routes from Japan were at "reasonably high levels, and were particularly high on Hawai'i, trans-Pacific and Korea routes at over 89 percent."

Hawaii Tourism Japan had no immediate comment about the news. The marketing specialists have already been dealing with high fuel surcharges that have been a factor cited in the continuing decline of Hawai'i visitors from Japan.

Although the fare hike request is subject to government approval, Pearlman said the government accepts such fare increase requests "more often that not."