This comes right on the heels of yesterday’s popular article Big Shift As Hawaii Tourism Boom Crushes Neighbor Islands +21%. The state says that visitors and residents traveling had better be prepared for the travel onslaught, as you see in the featured photo from Maui airport. We’re heeding the warning and suggest you take note.
The state is advising all travelers to arrive at all of Hawaii’s airports at least three hours before departure during peak travel times.
Hawaii DOT said, “anyone traveling out of Hawaii’s five major airports in Honolulu, Kahului, Lihue, Kona, or Hilo to arrive early, especially if travelling between the peak hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Long lines at security checkpoints have been observed at these airports and passenger volume over the Labor Day and Memorial Day weekends has equaled or exceeded pre-pandemic numbers.”
Like we said earlier in the week, Hawaii domestic traffic is running ahead of all prior records at all of the airports except for Honolulu. And that one isn’t far off the mark either.
While the current warning was timed primarily to admonish travelers about the upcoming July 4 weekend, it also is referring to conditions that’ll be prevailing the entire summer season.
Airlines will change ticket counter schedules to help ease the crunch.
DOT Director Jade Butay said that, “Major airlines have agreed to make sure ticket counters are open at least three hours before scheduled flights during the busy summer season.”
We’ve missed flights at Hawaii airports under much less crazy conditions.
Even before this busiest ever summer season started, we missed flights traveling out of Hawaii’s airports. While they are smaller, in many ways more charming, and can be fast to transit during good times, that isn’t always the case, and just isn’t true now.
Hawaii DOT recommends checking out the latest TSA videos for tips before heading to the airport.
Please let us know how your Hawaii travels go!
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Hi Marcia, I have read the choo choo comments and didn’t find anything that would violate the policy. Unfortunately people find Offense in many things, that’s more Personal. Oauh has their own debacled choo choo that “Had” a completion time frame of October 2023 to Summer of 2024, not to mention where the “Funding” would come from. So much for that! Can hardly wait to see the Price to ride when it’s finished. That may be quite Offensive.
I surely don’t understand the fascination with Hawaii in the summertime.
How about limit tourists coming here moving forward it’s not fun for either us residents or them to have so many people in one place
Hi Michael you do make some good points in what you’ve said, a few tourists who feel “Privileged” by their upbringing that disregard warning signs will occasionally pay with their life, but it You that ultimately suffer. Lineage proven Hawaiians, and to a lesser extent others, Benefit in Many Ways that aren’t being talked about. The neighsayer’s of Tourism aren’t from that group, so who are they really? Malcontents are vocal but relatively few. After a while they become buzzing annoyances. Tourist Dollars are needed and Should Be Sufficient to provide for many projects, look to the Elected for Excuses why it’s Not! Help Hawaii Help Itself!
Big Island TSA is one of the worst in the country. Their ‘policies’ are arbitrary and not consistent with other Hawaii or mainland airports. Some of the TSA personnel are militant and rude.
I had to fly Hawaiian air from maui to honolulu to pick up my delta flight to mainland what a racket long lines a mile long and this was June 24th took 45 minutes get to agent to check my bag good thing got there early if not I would have missed my flight
And why you all think Hawaii TSA lines are longer than any other airport, is hillarious, shows you’ve been nowhere except in your bubbles
Just recently came back from Kona on the 28th, and maybe I was the exception but didn’t experience any long line. We travel from Dallas to Kona, then took a two day trip to Honolulu, back to Kona. At none of the three airports did we experience a line longer than 10 minutes.
What I would recommend is renting a car from local business and not major car rental at airport. We got a private driver to take us to the offsite car rental and also back to the airport when we return the vehicle.
Thank you for your post. I have been 7 years trying to return to paradise and the posts on here and fb are so terrifying that they dont really want us to come visit. I really want to give it a go next year before I am 80 and hope i can fly in and out without alllll this mayhem. You have given me hope. Mahalo
Sandi,
I was also scared prior to my trip as I heard about all the horror stories about fight delays, cancelations, and long lines. Luckily, I didn’t experience any of it. Now looking back, most of the stories are coming from flight departing/arriving in the east coast.
But honestly, if this is your last trip to Hawaii, I wouldn’t let these stories scare you from going ahead and booking your trip. I would recommend maybe buying the flight insurance just for added comfort. And finding local car rental instead of the big rental agencies.
Best of much to you!
Meant “Luck” not “much”
It’s not terrifying here at all; I would suggest that you stop reading this, if you did, you would not know any of the craziness that gets posted here by the very few. BOH should start posting some positives, the world is so full of negatives, that would be delightful not to see negative rants
But you just posted a negative rant (actually, an insult to all the other readers would be more accurate) just above.
Both comments seem to violate the the first bullet on the comment policy.
The state go and Build a 6000car rental Garage.. with 2 Cho Cho trains.. TSA works on one speed.. Don’t Blane then… We needed a Larger Airport like yesterday….More tourist, are Vacationing on Maui than any other island… what’s the Answer??
LOL they did build a bazilion dollar choo choo train on maui to run what 50 feet to the rental cars.. faster to walk. How can we say WASTE of Money and that is how its done, our politicians say give us the money we’ll give it to our buds in construction industry, A/K/A we’ll waste it, someone will benefit, not the public tho.
Sounds like a pretty negative rant to me Beni!
Aloha, it was, however I did find the choo-choo train comment hilarious, and there was no negative comments of our visitors!
LOL, fair enough Beni!
Aloha, it was, however I did find the choo-choo train comment hilarious, and there was no negative comments of our visitors!
We need control over tourism enough is enough in my opinion as an Oahu resident there should be one resident for every tourist if there are more of them than us that’s a problem
To play along here for a moment…
How are you going to accomplish this without wrecking the Hawaiian economy?
I think you’re mistaking a set back with a wreck. Sometimes, you need to take a step back to go forward. The burden of tourists is not nearly being offset by the money that they bring. I don’t think Hawaiians are going to shed many tears over the Oahu skyline falling. Certainly not as many as their waterfalls, reefs, and beaches being destroyed. Hawaiians aren’t completely innocent in their destruction, but a few bad apples are a far cry from the lot that tourists are bringing with them. We have a beautiful waterfall in my hometown, but when I look at it, I don’t think of the beauty anymore; I think of the amount of idiotic tourists that want to go swimming only to get pulled over the top and found dead alongside the mouth a week later.
Hello Erika, Oahu has just over 1 million residents, with a 1 to 1 basis and a complete turnaround each 12 days on average things really add up. You’re telling me that You are perfectly fine with a total amount of 30 million tourists per year on Oahu! That would be a huge jump from the half million tourists total in 2021.
Aloha one tip for those who may be overweight on their bags would be to pack anything extra and mail it ahead of time back to your home. It will be like a bonus to receive it when you’re back from your vacation. This will ensure you aren’t pulled aside,slowing down your departure and others and keeping the line flowing smoothly. Happy Travels!!
I have, for some unknown reason, never addressed the TSA in Hawaii and Newark so Today is the Day. The TSA has a Tough, yet Necessary, Job to Perform to keep our Flights as Secure as Possible. That is High Stress on Steroids! They Perform their jobs Professionally and Quickly. I am disabled and have trouble walking, my legs and hips freeze up, imagine the long Obstacle Course! I’m Thanking the TSA for Their Help, Compassion, in taking me through the “Ropes” avoiding the line and immense pain. They do a thankless job, Today I Laud and Thank Them All! Great Job.
I like the idea of putting together and disseminating it to the people who need to know. One Suggestion, Critique, would be the use of the word “Admonish.” Realizing that it is by definition a proper use, most people think of it as a Negative Connotation. The word “Warn” would be Better Received and Understood. Remembering the Adage K.I.S.S., no negativity towards you, Keep It Simple Stupid will guide you well! Happy Tourists typically spend more and are more Respectful. Kudos.
I’d like to add another tip for a successful vacation: Patience will be your friend at more than just the airport. Staffing is a huge issue for so many businesses over there, in addition to supply chain issues (partially empty shelves in many stores). We were in line at a Long’s, there was only one checker, and in fact she may have been the only employee there. There were about 20 people in line, but thankfully everyone behaved well. When we got up to her, even with all that pressure, she was still full of aloha spirit, smiling, and thankful for our patience.
We quickly realized you can’t go to HI now with the same expectations as pre-pandemic, but we had nothing but friendly and professional service. Totally impressed! Mahalo!
We just came home from Kauai 10 days ago. One of our group was traveling Hawaiian, which recommended a 3-hr. advance arrival to the airport, but everything else I checked said two to 2 1/2 hours. We got there close to 3 hours ahead, about 10 am, and wouldn’t you know, we were through TSA in about 15 minutes! They even opened another TSA area just as our lines were starting to get longer. My friend, who frequently flies in and out of Lihue, said it was the fastest she’s ever gone through clearance!
Everyone at the airport, TSA folks, airport staff, airline staff, were totally on top of their game. Really impressive. The only problem was we then had hours to hang out till our respective planes took off– in my case, 5 hours! 🙂
Thank the “SWA effect” for the strain.
(Assuming you have a rental car to pick up) I can attest from personal experience at the Kona airport that if your travel party can spilt up, send one person immediately to the car rental counter and let others in your party grab the bags. The shuttle stops are overwhelmed so walk to the car rental area (might be a 15 min walk but this is much faster than waiting on a shuttle).
(I’m sorry, Warren, I accidentally hit a thumbs down on your comment when I meant to hit “Reply”! It won’t let me undo.)
A friend who returned from Kauai the week before we went said lines for car rentals were 2 hours long. But when we arrived, we were on the shuttle with 4 others, at the lot in minutes, and driving out 10 min. later.
Perhaps we were just lucky in our timing for the airport, car, etc., as we pretty much sailed through all of it. We didn’t try to avoid busy times; in fact we often dined, shopped, and drove at what should be the busiest times. But other than what I noted in my previous post, none of the warnings (crowds, traffic, delays) turned out to apply to our experience. I hope the same for others!
thank you for this promising comment. I so want to return to the islands and these nightmare stories are either to frighten the tourists away or are really for real. I wish I knew what to really expect before dumping my hard earned savings on my last trip to Hawaiian. thanks
I hope you can make your long-awaited trip, Sandi! Ours was postponed two years due to the pandemic, so I know the frustration of having to wait to go but then the worry that it’s going to be a big hassle when you Do finally go. Especially as it cost more than twice as much now to do the same trip we’d planned two years ago!
Of course, traveling after schools go back in session as well as after Labor Day will likely go a long ways toward having a smoother and more hassle-free experience, and perhaps even be less expensive. We went in mid-June due to a milestone birthday of one of our little group, but if it weren’t for that, we’d probably have waited till September.