Southwest Chairman and CEO Gary Kelly announced Monday at a rally in Dallas that the company’s validation flights to and from Hawaii had concluded with a “thumbs up” from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Kelly said Southwest is now ” awaiting our report card’ and its next step is to receive the official authorization for ETOPS operation of the flights. ETOPS, which stands for “extended-range twin-engine operational performance standards,” is a certification for aircraft that fly over places with sparse or non-existing landing areas.

The official certification, which should be coming shortly, is needed for Southwest to make its long-awaited entry into the Hawaii market.

Southwest announced last year that it initially plans to fly to Hawaii from the California cities of San Diego, Oakland, San Jose and Sacramento and then add interisland routes that include Maui, Hawaii island and Kauai. There’s also been talk of a Las Vegas route.

The carrier had anticipated flying sometime in February, but the government shutdown delayed Federal Aviation Administration regulators from completing the certification process. Kelly did not provide an update on when the carrier could begin Hawaii sales or operations. But he said during a January earnings call that if the FAA got started again in February, it would probably be another month before the carrier got its certificate and could sell tickets. Kelly speculated it would be another month beyond that before it was flying here.

Southwest has now ended a period of test runs for its 175-seat Boeing 737-800 aircraft, its initial aircraft for Hawaii service. On Feb. 5, Southwest began a half-dozen or so trial flights that make up the final stages of what is typically a 12- to 18-month approval process.