It’s nearly November, but Southwest Airlines is still vowing to begin selling tickets between the mainland and Hawaii later this year.

The Dallas-based carrier said Thursday it is “ready to go” but awaiting approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.

“We are very, very anxious, very eager for our upcoming launch in Hawaii,” Southwest President Tom Nealon said on an earnings conference call after the airline announced a 16.5 percent increase in third-quarter earnings but warned of rising fuel costs and other increasing expenses. “We are ready to go with our flight schedules once we receive necessary approvals.”

Southwest, which announced exactly a year ago it would begin selling tickets to Hawaii in 2018, said in May it initially will fly to Hawaii from the California cities of San Diego, San Jose, Oakland and Sacramento and then add interisland routes once its mainland-Hawaii operation is established.

Mike Van de Ven, chief operating officer for Southwest, said on the conference call that the ETOPS (Extended-range Twin- engine Operational Performance Standards) process takes around 12 to 18 months.

“That’s generally the scheduled time for that process, and we’re coming up on just about 12 months of work there today,” he said. “So we have made — continue to make — steady progress with the FAA on it. We have completed, really, the regulatory reviews of the manuals. And we’ve got the feedback from the FAA and made the changes, and we are transitioning now from the design and documentation of our ETOPS procedures into what I would call a demonstration phase. That’s characterized by us doing tabletop exercises with the FAA and then ultimately validation flights. And so we’re in the process right now of trying to get those tabletops and those validation flights scheduled.”

Van de Ven said Southwest still has two more months before the year is up to get that accomplished.

“Hopefully, after we get that done and we would have the certification in place, then we will begin the process of selling the tickets and trying to book up,” he said. “We’ve got the resources and the locations ready in Hawaii. We’ve got the equipment there. We have our people bid and staff ready to go out there. And as soon as we get the approval from the FAA, we can start our training programs with our people. And so on the operations side we’ll be ready, and then we’ll just coordinate with the commercial side of the business.”

Van de Ven said it’s Southwest’s intention to add both a pilot and a flight attendant crew base in Los Angeles that will open in December and the first part of next year.

“That will in part support our Hawaii efforts,” he said. “Hawaii (is) our expansion focus for next year. … Our goal continues still to be to sell tickets at the end of this year and operate flights early next year.”