Maui airport gets upgrades amid economic shift from sugar
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / OCT. 2001
The Maui News reports workers are spending the coming months finishing a cell phone lot and breaking ground on a $350 million rental car facility, among other Kahului Airport improvements.
WAILUKU >> Maui airport is getting upgrades that officials hope will boost tourism as the economy-driving sugar industry phases out of production.
Workers are spending the coming months finishing a cellphone lot and breaking ground on a $350 million rental car facility, among other Kahului Airport improvements, the Maui News reported.
“After sugar … we only have tourism,” Marvin Moniz, Maui Airports district manager, said.
Hawaii’s last sugar plantation, Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co., will close by 2017.
Officials hope upgrading the state’s second-busiest airport will boost the travel industry and accommodate more tourists.
Four paved lanes will replace the airport entrance by the summer in a two-phase project costing a total of about $73.7 million.
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“It helps with the increased traffic we’ve had coming into the airport,” Moniz said. “It takes some heavy traffic off Dairy Road and makes traffic from Kihei and Lahaina flow smoothly.”
Moniz says the number of travelers passing through the airport has grown from 2.6 million in 2011, to about 2.9 million in 2014.
Last year, there were about 3.1 million travelers who passed through Kahului Airport
The addition will make traveling easier, Craig Okita, a project manager at Hawaiian Dredging, said.
“It’s good for the economy. It gets guys off the labor benches,” Okita said. “Overall it helps a lot of different people.”
7 responses to “Maui airport gets upgrades amid economic shift from sugar”
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The GOOD NEWS is that most people on The Mainland believe that Hawaii is Wailea, Maui! Sorry, all you Maui Kanakaole’s–move to Ulapalakua…
Actually, no. SA writers imply that the State DOT-Airports “decided” to spend money at Kahului airport on upgrades, amid the shutdowns of the sugar industry. Anyone who knows the way our state bureaucracy functions, will appreciate that these projects were planned many years ago. In fact, it’s too bad it has taken this long (but no surprise) to put into action. State infrastructure projects are always a day late and a dollar short. The decision by A&B to shut down sugar harvesting was a relatively new one and had nothing to do with construction projects in the works. In any case, Maui residents are on the cusp of an explosion of development and growth…and all the related problems. At least the folks on Oahu may get a little break. More “capacity on maui” takes the load off Oahu. Maui no ka oi, right? Be careful what you ask for, you might get it.
Oh boy, high rise condos all over the island.
Is anyone going to make Honolulu airport not rank as one of the worse in the world? Many third world countries have nicer airports and better services. Last time I flew in, there was one, single bus, there to pick up an almost full planeload. If you didn’t fit you waited. Maybe HART should have practiced building a train at the airport to transport people rather than blowing all our tax dollars on the real thing with money that possibly could redo our airport and provide better services there..
Let’s face it. Our airport is a dump. I hate coming back after leaving some luxury airport elsewhere. Even Newark has a monorail between terminals so little walking is necessary anywhere in the airport. There’s also a Marriott right in the middle of the airport and in a few years the Path train will have direct access to downtown Newark and New York City where you can be in Times Square in a about a half hour. Some of the other airports around the world put us to shame. Even Vietnam’s new planned airport will put us to shame.
The State loves to spend tons on rental car facilities but doesn’t do much to improve the interior of the airports.
Before they upgrade Kahului airport why not fix Honolulu first?