The head of the world’s largest airline said there are opportunities for expanded Hawaii service from the West Coast as the year-old merger between United Airlines and Continental Airlines begins to take shape.

Jeff Smisek, president and CEO of United Continental Holdings Inc., said the airline also plans to increase daily seating capacity between Honolulu and Guam at the end of next month and that Honolulu Airport, which is undergoing a $2.3 billion modernization program, is in need of an upgrade.

"There are opportunities for us off the West Coast that we didn’t have before at just Continental and United," Smisek said Thursday at a business luncheon at the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort. "When you put them together with the power of the networks, we can attract people."

Smisek, 57, was CEO of Continental until it merged with United on Oct. 1, and he became CEO of the combined company.

"There are routes where people will overfly Honolulu and fly directly because people prefer to do that, so we’re trying to service that business as well," he said. "But it’s all subject to demand, subject to fuel prices and subject to the cost of the airports and all of the other variations. But we’re always looking to grow the carrier where it makes sense."

One example, he said, was the Los Angeles-Hilo service that began on June 9 using the 157-seat Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

The airline also recently said it plans to use a larger aircraft for its daily Honolulu-Guam market beginning Oct. 28 that will mean an increase of 92 seats a day. United will use a 348-seat Boeing 777 in place of the 256-seat Boeing 767-400 that it now uses.

"Hawaiian routes, as a general rule, are good routes for us," Smisek said. "They’re more leisure-oriented than many of our other routes, but they perform at a level that we’re happy with at the moment," he said.

United, which acquired Continental Airlines in a $3 billion stock swap, has a large footprint in the islands. The merged company, which is still operating the two carriers under separate brand names, brought in 26.9 percent of the more than 5.7 million passengers arriving in Hawaii through the first eight months of this year. United and Continental accounted for 22.1 percent of the state’s total 6.3 million air seats during the same time frame, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

They operate 255 flights a week to the islands, including about 20 daily to Honolulu. They also employ 1,500 people in the state, including 1,100 in Honolulu.

Delta Air Lines brings the second most air seats into the state at 18.9 percent, HTA said.

Smisek said he welcomes the renovation being done now to upgrade Honolulu Airport.

"If you take a look at the Honolulu Airport, it could use some work," he said. "We are supportive of airport modernization. It’s a little overdue."

He also said it’s unlikely United will want to pursue expansion of flights between Honolulu and Asia as Hawaiian Airlines has done, and that there is an infinitesimal chance that United would fly interisland.

"Honolulu is not a hub for us," Smisek said. "We connect Honolulu to the West Coast to our hubs in San Francisco and L.A. In terms of nonstop flights to Asian destinations, it’s not likely to happen because we don’t have a hub on one end and we don’t have a hub on the other end, and usually when you do that, you get killed. It’s just not profitable. But Hawaiian has a hub here, so it’s natural for them."

United’s only nonstop flights to Hawaii from outside the mainland are from Tokyo’s Narita International Airport, Guam and Majuro in the Marshall Islands.

Smisek also indicated that he was content to leave interisland routes to Hawaiian and smaller airlines.

"My view is that interisland flying has the demand for about one-point fraction of an airline, and that has always been the problem — where you’ve always had two airlines in a 1.3 airline market or whatever there is," he said. "It’s just destruction. It’s something that we will not do. We fly from a hub."

Smisek said Chicago-based United is only halfway through the merger process a year after the deal was finalized. Last week, United said it will be combining the frequent-flier awards of the two carriers into one program beginning in 2012. The company also expects to get Federal Aviation Administration approval by the end of this year to start selling tickets under one code, and it expects to integrate the two airlines’ computer systems by March so that one system can handle the processing and ticketing.