Five runway shutdowns in less than three years would get travelers’ attention anywhere. At Kona, each one can stop the entire airport because there is no second runway, and the most recent one comes while Hawaii is still working through a $100.432 million rehabilitation of the same 11,000-foot landing strip.
That project is now expected to extend into 2027, even as the state still hasn’t publicly explained what caused the September crack or whether the affected pavement had already been addressed in the rehabilitation. On September 3, three inbound flights were diverted to Kahului before operations resumed, another reminder of how quickly a runway problem at Kona can disrupt travel beyond the Big Island.
We were asking about this before the big project began.
In January 2024, after an emergency crack shutdown at Kona Airport, we asked whether nearly $200 million in planned runway work at Kona and Lihue would finally solve longstanding pavement problems. Then Kona closed again that April after another runway crack developed, with HDOT saying overnight rain was suspected of contributing to the failure.
The larger Kona rehabilitation began later in 2024, and we followed it as work got underway on the airport’s only runway. Then, on October 30, 2025, while construction was underway, another pavement fracture closed Kona for about seven hours.
HDOT has not identified a single engineering cause linking those failures, so we can’t say the same defect has been repeating. What is clear is that the closures continued during the much larger rehabilitation project.
The $100 million runway work now extends into 2027.
HDOT lists Runway 17-35 Rehabilitation, project AH2021-16, with an estimated cost of $100 million. The project covers the entire runway, although different sections receive different work, including reconstruction, overlay, and mill-and-replace.
HDOT had previously expected the work to continue through April 2026. The state’s current project page now lists January 15, 2027, as the anticipated completion date, with HDOT saying the later schedule is tied to emergency bridge work related to Hurricane Lala response efforts. Yet while that major rehabilitation remains underway, another crack was serious enough to close the airport again last month.
Kona has been talking about a second runway for decades.
Big Island residents were already pressing for a second parallel runway in the late 1980s. The state instead chose to lengthen the existing runway, eventually extending it from 6,500 feet to today’s 11,000 feet rather than adding another.
A later Kona airport master plan identified backup runway capability as an important consideration, noting that Kona was the only one of Hawaii’s larger commercial airports without another runway available when the primary one had to close. The current master plan again includes a second “right-sized” runway among its objectives for improving resiliency, capacity and efficiency, although it remains in planning rather than construction.
Nearly four decades after West Hawaii first pushed for another runway, the idea is still on the drawing board while Kona continues relying on the same runway whose failures have repeatedly forced the airport to close. After five shutdowns since early 2024, it’s become much harder to ignore how long that arrangement can continue.
If you’ve been diverted, delayed, or caught in one of Kona’s runway shutdowns, has the repeated closure history changed how you plan a Big Island trip?
By Rob and Jeff, Beat of Hawaii.
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Why couldn’t some of those flights be diverted to Hilo rather than Maui or is the Hilo runway not long enough for some planes?
Personally I love the Kona airport. The one that exists today is unique. The pod concept keeps it slightly less crowded. It is open to the elements. Fabulous… people come to Hawaii to experience the greatness of Mother Nature. To arrive in a lava field……. where else on the globe are you going to do that? Plane doors open and bam…..air filled with floral smells, nothing around you but Mother Nature totally bare. You walk yourself to baggage pick up. Transportation right there.
I would like to see an improvement on the walk thru the airport waiting area to baggage claim.
HDOT has repeatedly demonstrated that airport management lies completely beyond their competence. It’s well beyond time Hawai’i had an independent airport authority, completely separate from HDOT.
I can’t believe the FAA hasn’t interfered with this Hawaii fiasco.
Which of course is expected with HDOT. Kona has such a high number of visitors. If tourists have to be diverted to OGG or HNL it will surely leave a “bad taste” in visitor’s mouths. No excuse, get to work.