Cataluna: Kona airport’s blast from the past

Stepping off the plane in Kona is like getting out of a time machine that just landed in the 80s.

The airport is modern and the luxury developments nearby are new and swanky. There are all the modern conveniences in Kona. That’s not the throw-back part.

It’s the experience of walking from the plane’s controlled climate out into the open air, descending to the actual tarmac and walking toward the airport without the protective tube of the jetway. It smells like the 80s. It sounds and feels like the 80s, too.

Not that the 80s were better in that regard. Walking through brisk wind and sometimes heavy rain, breathing in the smell of exhaust while trying to get to the terminal with a bit of cool intact was not fun, and it was sometimes harrowing, but it was exciting. Convenience is awesome, but getting on and off a plane using a metal staircase, your hair and clothes whipping in the wind, your family in the distance leaning on the fence and waving goodbye or cheering your arrival, is presidential and dramatic.

Landing in Kona is a visceral reminder of those days when the gutsiest part of flying inter island was navigating the slippery metal stairs in the rain, not standing arms-up, feet apart for the full-body TSA scan knowing that strangers are looking at everything there is to see.

Back in the era of those metal stairs, passengers got on inter island flights without going through much screening. Family members could walk right up to the gate to say goodbye. With airline coupon books, a passenger could write their name in a ticket, fill out the flight number and hop on a plane like it was a city bus. An airline’s flight schedule was a three-fold pamphlet your mom kept by the phone, not something you could look up online in real time.

So much was left to chance back then. It’s a wonder we got anywhere.

There was no texting as soon as you land: “Ma, I stay.” If no one was there to pick you up, you waited. There was no calling to see if your ride got stuck in traffic. You just sat yourself down in the hard plastic bucket chairs, swung your feet and stared into space until your people came to claim you.

That haphazard, spontaneous nature of inter island travel was lovely, too, though.

Your family could greet you right at the fence around the baggage claim, carrying lei made from flowers gathered in the back yard. If you tripped down the infamous stairs, they all saw and laughed. There was no cell phone video to document the misstep, but even so, the story would live on for years.

And there was something about stepping off a plane into the open air, even through a blast of wind that smelled of jet fuel and plumerias that messed up your hair and threatened to lift skirts to shameful heights, that really felt like coming home. It’s nice that Kona still has a bit of that.