The Middle Eastern flavors served by Kamal Jemmari and Youssef Dakroub will travel eastward from Honolulu’s Chinatown as Kan Zaman restaurant expands to Kaimuki.

Jemmari and Dakroub, the restaurant partners and chefs behind Kan Zaman, have been looking at multiple locations “for a little over a year,” Jemmari said.

It is an indication of the success the partners have enjoyed at their first location, at 1028 Nuuanu Ave., since opening in 2013.

“We are very happy, and very thankful and grateful for our guests,” Jemmari said. “One thing we feel really good about is almost 60 to 70 percent are regulars.”

The pair hopes to build a similar following with their second-story location in Kaimuki at 1127 11th Ave., above a planned Ichiriki Japanese Nabe Restaurant.

The new restaurant will seek a beer and wine license, whereas the original restaurant allows customers to bring their own bottles.

There is no opening date for the new Kan Zaman, which means “once upon a time” in Arabic. The design work is in its beginning stages, though Jemmari believes the location will seat about 40 diners, compared to the 55- to 65-guest capacity of the original spot.

Hawaiian Air passenger traffic up 7.1%

Hawaiian Airlines’ passenger traffic jumped 7.1 percent in February as the state’s largest carrier flew more miles and generated more revenue than in the year-ago period.

There were 842,412 passengers last month compared with 786,382 in February 2015, the company said Friday. The load factor, or the percentage of seats filled, rose 1.2 percentage points to 79.1 percent from 77.9 percent.

Revenue passenger miles, or one paying passenger transported one mile, increased 7 percent to 1.09 million from 1.02 million. Available seat miles, or one seat transported one mile, rose 5.4 percent to 1.38 million from 1.31 million.

Jetstar halting Brisbane-Honolulu flights

Australian low-cost carrier Jetstar is ending its Brisbane-Honolulu route beginning in October to focus on more profitable routes to Bali and Phuket, Thailand, according to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

Jetstar said it will keep flying to Honolulu from Sydney, a larger market than Brisbane, and from Melbourne, where it is the only carrier offering nonstop flights.

“Despite the lower dollar, the Honolulu routes continue to perform well for both Qantas and Jetstar,” a Jetstar spokesman was quoted as saying on Friday. “But it’s fair to say we’ve seen a moderate dip in demand out of Brisbane and we believe it is the right time to move this capacity to Asia where more Australians want to travel.”

HECO to debut energy storage pilot plan

Hawaiian Electric Co. said Friday that its Maui utility is partnering with Honolulu-based energy storage company E-Gear LLC to launch a pilot program designed to allow more customers to interconnect rooftop photovoltaic systems on Molokai.

The level of PV systems already installed or approved on the island’s small electric grid is among the highest in the islands, HECO said. The utility said because of the number of systems connected, PV applications on Molokai have experienced delays because the utility needs to address reliability and safety issues raised in technical reviews.

E-Gear will install its energy management control and storage technology, which will be paid for by the utility, alongside 10 existing rooftop PV systems. The equipment will be monitored and controlled by utility system operators, potentially improving the interaction of rooftop PV systems with the grid and reducing the chance the systems will affect reliable electrical service. HECO said the utility will evaluate the performance of these systems and determine whether similar systems can be used in other areas with high concentrations of rooftop solar.

ON THE MOVE

DTRIC Insurance has named Kevin Jacinto as its new vice president/chief information officer. He has more than 17 years of IT strategic leadership experience, including a previous position as an assistant vice president of IT Infrastructure at First Hawaiian Bank, as well as chief information officer for Environet.

Hawaiian Host has announced the following addition to its company:

>> Shannon Chalakee is the firm’s customer service/order management coordinator for their North America region. She will coordinate functions of customer service, manage customer/broker telephone calls and emails as well as execute and process customer orders for the North America region. Chalakee has more than 11 years of sales support and customer service experience.