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.
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