Warning: Honolulu Airport Flight Delays + Missed Flights

If you’re concerned about the incessant flight delays at Hawaii’s airports, and the likelihood of missed connections, we’ve got specific suggestions today. There are two airports that continue to have the great majority of all delays and here’s what you can do to avoid missed flights and other issues. And one of those airports is even more likely to create a gotcha situation you definitely want to avoid when possible.

Be sure to plan enough time between an interisland flight and a mainland connection. So, for example, if you are flying from Kona to Honolulu and then Honolulu to Los Angeles, this applies to you. Or if you are traveling in the opposite direction from a mainland flight to an interisland flight. Our suggestion is to allow a minimum of 3 hours between arrival time and departure time when transiting either Honolulu or Maui.

The reason is this, on Wednesday, these were the delayed flights at Honolulu airport:

5 Alaska Airlines
2 American Airlines
1 Delta Airlines
43 Hawaiian Airlines
1 Mokulele Airlines
10 Southwest Airlines
2 United Airlines

And on Thursday, these were the delayed flights at Honolulu:

5 Alaska Airlines
2 American Airlines
1 Delta Airlines
50 Hawaiian Airlines
1 Mokulele Airlines
12 Southwest Airlines
1 United Airlines

The great majority of these delays were on interisland flights both to and from Honolulu. In addition there were delays on flights to Los Angeles, Newark, Oakland, Orlando, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle.

The US Bureau of Transporation Statistics.

BTS is responsible for the data associated with both flight delays and cancellations and they are provided by airport, monthly. The problem is that the most current month for which they have reporting is May, which is before the height of the recent cancellation issues started. When data is released for June, July, and August, we’ll see a huge jump.

Maui continues to closely follow the huge number of delayed flights at Honolulu Airport. Lihue and Kona airports have been operating relatively free of flight delays.

However, keep in mind that there are excessive TSA lines.

That has been especially true at Maui and on Kauai. Also on Kauai, there is a shortage of airport parking that’s about to get worse. Starting next week the state will begin paving of the parking lot. That is going to extend for months and it is expected that if all goes to plan, at any one time 10% of the airport parking will be closed.

Do check with MyTSA App prior to heading out. We note that for today, Friday, TSA is estimating wait times at Maui Airport of more than one hour at mid-day.

And a visitor asks:

Marlene asked this morning, saying “After reading about delayed and missed flights in and out of Hawaii, we have concerns about an upcoming flight. We are scheduled on a HA flight from LAX to Sydney, Australia with a 1 hour layover in Honolulu. Is one hour enough time to get from our first gate to the international gates? We’ve contacted HA but got a very vague response. Does anyone have any advice? Thanks so much!”

Answer: Most of the flights delayed are interisland. But mainland ones are delayed too. Since it looks like you’re flying on Hawaiian, you might do some checking on the flight you will be on. FlightAware is the best source of that. Put in your flight number and you can see the on-time performance over a period of time.  We did some checking for you, and on every date we checked, the shortest connection time HA offers is 2 hours. And that seems like about the minimum that’s appropriate.