Two critically important Hawaii travel reopening-related press events just took place. The first one was the governor’s press conference which just ended. That was preceded by a Zoom travel industry meeting hosted by the University of Hawaii. First below is the governor’s exciting news, followed by some takeaways from today’s earlier meeting.
Governor Ige: All islands to open on Thursday for trans-Pacific travel without quarantine.
Governor Ige, Lieutenant Governor Green together with the Hawaii Director of Health hosted a press conference this afternoon. Governor Ige kicked this off with the statement, “We are looking forward to launching the pre-travel testing program on Thursday.” He believes that this is the most advanced program in the country. In concert with the neighbor islands, testing will be accepted for travel to all airports in Hawaii.
Kauai and Maui have also developed voluntary post-arrival testing programs and there will also be a state-wide surveillance testing program. These post-arrival tests will all be free of charge. A pre-travel testing program with Japan is also now pending. More details will be forthcoming.
The governor said that the Big Island will differ in its procedures from Maui and Kauai in that mainland to Big Island travelers will require a county provided, no-cost antigen test directly on arrival. That in contrast to Maui and Kauai, where we understand a second test for mainland arrivals will be made available optionally three days after arrival. Oahu is working towards having some form of secondary tests implemented in the near future as well. We are awaiting yet another press conference, this time with Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell.
The governor said regarding the disparity and confusion about differing rules between the islands, “Every county has different situations and different challenges.”
Interisland pre-travel testing program also starts Thursday.
Governor Ige said, “Travel between the counties is an essential part of being connected.” He went on to say that an exemption to quarantine has been approved and will also be implemented starting Thursday for travelers going between Honolulu and both Maui and Kauai.
“Both Kauai and Maui will be implementing the pre-travel (interisland) testing program on Thursday” — Governor Ige. Details for interisland travel to the Big Island without mandatory quarantine, however, are still being worked out.
The governor said there will be “More details as we proceed.” The governor said that $30 million in Cares Act funds will be used to purchase hundreds of thousands of additional COVID tests.
New trusted testing partners just added.
The new partners that have been added today include the following. In total there are now 17 approved partners from whom travelers can obtain tests in accordance with the state’s rules:
Industry zoom meeting included details of using the Safe Travels App and more.
1. Tim Sakahara, the Director of Communications for the state’s Department of Transportation provided the following.
Safe Travels App. Travelers must set up their Safe Travels account before arriving in Hawaii. They will be sent a QR code which will be scanned by officials on arrival. Every passenger, including children, will need an email address. Airport screeners will scan and verify passenger’s information including their test results, after which travelers are free to leave the airport. He suggested that test results be on your phone or printed.
Regarding a second optional test. Tim said (prior to the governor’s press conference) that four days after the traveler has entered Hawaii, a second voluntary (surveillance) test will be conducted to help see if there are any additional cases. The goal is to test 10% of all arrivals. This is a free test and Tim said there may be gift cards or other incentives offered for taking the test.
2. Hawaiian Airlines’ take. Avi Mannis, senior vice president of marketing thanked all of their front line workers, saying “There’s no work from home option” in the airline industry. We are unique in our dependence on air travel.” Avi said in response to a repeated question, that the quarantine has made it hard to know what the underlying demand for travel is. 90% of those who had planned to come to Hawaii since March did not. Some of “Those who did come created headlines and did some lasting damage to our (Hawaii’s) brand.” Regarding interisland, Avi said that the interisland network used to transport 20,000 passengers a day, whereas now it is down to about 2,000 a day. “What happens to the interisland quarantine remains to be seen. He said that PCR testing like what is happening with mainland travel doesn’t make sense in terms of cost and logistics.
3. Alaska Airlines. Daniel Chun, Hawaii regional manager of sales and marketing for Alaska Airlines addressed safety initiatives both at Alaska specifically and in the industry generally. He depicted exceptional changes to promote safe travel including more than 100 specific actions that Alaska has taken.
Airlines on how long will it take to get back to pre-COVID Hawaii travel.
Both Daniel and Avi reaffirmed their inability to accurately forecast demand at least for now. At the same time, both of them expressed the hope that travel could potentially rebound up to 80% as soon as summer 2021. On the other hand, United Airlines regional manager Jeff Tarpey said he is awaiting a vaccine as the critical element needed for more normal travel volume to resume.
What are the testing requirements for Oahu to thee Big Island travel?
To all Canadians: Yes, you can travel to Hawaii. Yesterday we flew from Toronto via San Francisco to Maui. At SFO walked 15 min. from Domestic to International Terminal to get tested, courtesy of United Airlines. One is supposed to have an appointment (we did have one), but they also do take walk in/up clients who fly on United. It took about 20 Min to get the result and our papers, we uploaded a copy in PDF to the Safe Travels Site and continued our trip to Maui. There, we sailed through the controls, got our pink paper and picked up the renatal car. Even though it was a long trip, it was easy and all went well.
Costco is now offering COVID self-tests through on-line ordering. Does anyone know if these are acceptable to Hawaii? They say 24-72 hour results.
My personal guess is no
It’s a saliva test.
Says it’s PCR and Hawaii wants the higher grade
NAAT and no mention of the test facility being
CLIA rated. Also a must.
At $129. Might as well go to cvs/longs. 🤙🏽
No you can’t use these tests from Costco.. Hawaii does not allow self testing of any kind To qualify for the quarantine exemption when traveling to the islands
That’s curious because Hawaiian airlines just posted on social media they have a priority status with a test at home lab, Vault labs. Guaranteed results within the prescribed time frame. Downside the test is $150 each!
Well perhaps the Safe Travels site changed in the last 5 days. I have not looked. The only thing that matters is following the process and rules of the Safe Travels site.
I am back to update our experience. We landed in Honolulu today and made it through the checkpoint and to our hotel was little trouble but a lot of patience. We took our test at CVS and luckily they popped up this morning but the website was having a lot of issues so it took frequent tries to get the results. I’m traveling with a minor and CVS says they’ll text you those results. However, they do not show up-I ’s just over the phone that they’ll tell you if it’s positive or negative. I had to call the line and get transferred a couple times to get sent an email with the negative test results. Lesson learned is if you’re traveling with a minor in using CVS make sure you call the line and tell them you need to get a my chart account for the minor to be able to get physical proof of the results. Also, You do have to have a PDF version so you can’t upload it by taking a picture from your phone. When we checked in at the American Airlines counter they made sure we had our QR code and negative test results. We didn’t have to show them if they made sure we knew. Once we landed it was a long wait to get to the screening agents with our QR code with that point took less than five minutes. Waikiki is very quiet but they did just move to tier 2. There are a lot of homeless on the street cell hoping they get a lot more tourists
Thanks for you good reporting on the reopening. Have any of your readers had trouble getting a rental car? I understand the State waived the requirement that only tests from their pre approved list would be accepted, but are now going to begin enforcing that. The problem is many of those “preferred” tests take 5-7 days.
I understand rental car companies will use the same criterial as the state so unless you have a negative test from a preferred provider, you cannot rent a car.
Thanks. Gary
Hi Gary.
Let’s see what anyone can add. We have not heard anything as of yet. Thanks for asking.
Aloha.
Upon landing assuming your test qualifies and it shows negative you will be issued a Exemption form so you don’t have to quarantine. if you’re planning to rent a car you must have that exemption form and show the rental car agency or they cannot rent you a car.
Yes, we are wondering,also. If our tests aren’t completed by the time we land in Hawaii, how do we get to our resort to quarantine until the test results come in? Has no one had this problem! Thanks fir keeping us up to date!
Hi Brenda.
Great question and one that has not been answered thus far. Hopefully, someone can shine some light on this issue.
Aloha.
Thanks for all you are doing. I hope if you find out anything about this, you’ll report on it (of course, you will). Sorry for the typos in my previous post. I hit the enter button before I proof read…
Mahalo!
Hi Brenda.
Thanks. We will.
Aloha.
Landed today and rental car required I show the webpage that has QR code and with negative COvID test info below.
My direct flight from Oakland to Kona on Nov 5th on Southwest was canceled.
I now have a connecting flight through HNL to get to Kona on Southwest.
Will I still be able to take the second covid test in Kona to avoid the 14 day quarantine?
(why did southwest decide to cancel all their direct flights to Kona?)