Audit airport hangar project

Demanding an audit to probe a bungled government project has become almost a reflexive response. Audits aren’t always needed or even worth the added cost, but in the case of the long-delayed Hawaiian Airlines hangar construction job, such a study would be worth the investment.

That’s because the long delays and failure to avert them signals that there are problems with the process, problems that could continue to up-end the many other renovations on the schedule for Honolulu’s dilapidated airport.

Hawaiian Airlines announced that last weekend it had completed the fixes on a total of 3,688 problems with construction of its new maintenance and cargo hangar at the Daniel K. Ino­uye International Airport.

Rectifying what officials called “defects, deficiencies and incompletions” cost $34 million. About two-thirds of these had been listed as complete by the general contractor, DCK Pacific Construction LLC, said Mark Dunkerley, Hawaiian’s chief executive officer. As a result, Hawaiian has called for a state investigation to determine where the projectwent awry.

Of course, some of that data may be forthcoming, ultimately, through the state’s lawsuit against DCK, seeking to collect reimbursement of unwarranted charges. The state Department of Transportation also is working with the procurement office to bar the company from any future state projects, said DOT spokesman Tim Sakahara.

The state’s aggressive actions are well founded, but it may take a long time to ferret out the information that an audit could gather.

So having that report in preparation concurrently with the legal action, gathering data aimed specifically at shedding light on pitfalls with project supervision and management, would be valuable as the DOT Airports Division moves on to other facility improvements.

Sakahara underscored that the airport projects involve not taxpayer money but funds paid in as user fees by airlines and other vendors.

However, an audit also is justified because the general public does have an interest in seeing that these funds are spent wisely. Limited resources have to stretch to cover a mountainous list of fixes and upgrades needed at Honolulu’s international airport.

None of these other projects have been able to move until the completion of the hangar would allow the demolition of Hawaiian’s old cargo and maintenance facility. That would free up space for construction of a new concourse, replacing the commuter terminal that also would be torn down. A lot of plans have been on hold until the hangar mess was cleaned up.

And what a mess it was. The state had been paying the general contractor, but $4.2 million had not found its way to the 30 subcontractors, who then abandoned the project.

That’s why, in December 2015, the state locked down the project and began a year of pursuing an agreement with Hawaiian to complete the 280,000-square-foot hangar.

The estimated cost of the completed hangar is $120 million — a disgraceful outcome for a project with an anticipated price tag of $85 million. The state had also hired Wesley R. Segawa &Associates Inc. to manage the troubled project, but that did not solve the problem: a lack of effective oversight and cost and quality controls.

The accounting from Hawaiian Air should get full scrutiny before the state’s ledger gets reconciled and the book is closed on the project. But the result of this debacle bolsters the argument that the airline and the DOT itself made last legislative session: The facility might be better run by a quasi-independent body representing the private companies using the airport.

The idea deserves another look next session. The airport serving a state that depends on tourism can’t limp along like this. A better model for managing it must be found — and soon.