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On average, more than 125 visitors fly to Hawaii every day despite coronavirus quarantine

Visitors were included again in the count of trans-Pacific passengers coming to Hawaii.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority reported today that 444 trans-Pacific passengers arrived on Monday, including 111 visitors and 151 residents. The count also included 89 airline crew members, 55 transit passengers who are catching other flights and 38 intended new residents for Oahu.

Hawaii residents were the largest category comprising 34% of the total. Visitors, which made up 25% 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. The intended residents category might include military personnel, college students, people moving to Hawaii to live with their families, and homeless individuals.

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 26 days since the quarantine began, some 3,313 visitors have arrived. That’s an average of 127 passengers a day who are visitors.

Saturday was the most recent count of interisland visitors available from the state Department of Business Economic Development & Tourism. That day’s interisland passengers included 318 Hawaii residents and 54 out-of-state visitors. As many as 50 of those visitors went to Honolulu, while two went to Kona and two to Hilo.

Of the 319 residents traveling interisland, 161 went to Honolulu, 27 to Kona, 43 to Hilo, 39 to Maui, 12 to Molokai, 32 to Lihue and 5 to Lanai.

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