Almost 500 trans-Pacific passengers arrived in Hawaii on Friday

The count of trans-Pacific passengers coming to Hawaii dropped below 500 Friday.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority reported today that 486 trans-Pacific passengers arrived on Friday, including 98 visitors and 184 residents. The count also included 123 airline crew members, 40 transit passengers who are catching other flights and 39 intended new residents for Oahu and two for Lihue.

Hawaii residents were the largest category comprising 37% of the total. Visitors, which made up 20% of the traffic, included everyone with an out-of-state ID, who plans to leave Hawaii after a period of time. Intended residents are those with out-of-state IDs, who say they plan to stay here.

Visitor counts have greatly decreased since March 26, when Gov. David Ige instituted a 14-day mandatory self-quarantine for all arriving trans-Pacific passengers to cut travel demand and protect Hawaii’s resources due to COVID-19. He expanded the quarantine to interisland flights on April 1.

At this time last year, more than 30,000 passengers were arriving daily in Hawaii. In the 23 days since the quarantine began, some 2,970 visitors have arrived. That’s an average of nearly 130 passengers a day who are visitors.

Tuesday was the most recent count of interisland visitors available from the state Department of Business Economic Development & Tourism. That day’s interisland passengers included 659 Hawaii residents and 36 out-of-state visitors. As many as 33 of those visitors went to Honolulu, while one went to Kona and two to Maui.