The state Department of Transportation is advising travelers to get to Hawaii airports early to allow enough time to get through long security checkpoint lines as passenger volumes explode for the Fourth of July weekend.
With the holiday falling on Monday, DOT recommends that passengers traveling between the peak hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. arrive at the airport at least three hours in advance. During the busy summer season, state officials said, major airlines have agreed to open ticket counters at least three hours before scheduled flights.
The Transportation Department said it observed long lines at security checkpoints at Hawaii’s five major airports — in Honolulu, Kahului, Lihue, Kona and Hilo — over Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends, where passenger volume equaled or exceeded pre- pandemic numbers.
If you’re flying this holiday weekend, be prepared for crowded airports, full planes and higher-than-normal chances that your flight will be delayed or even canceled. Airlines have stumbled badly over those past two holiday weekends, and the number of Americans flying over the July Fourth weekend is expected to set records for the pandemic era.
In 2021 the Transportation Security Administration screened more than 10.1 million travelers over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, which includes traveler screenings from July 1 to 5. During the seven-day period that ended Wednesday, TSA screened an average of 2.35 million passengers nationwide per day, compared with 2.01 million during the same period in 2019.
In Hawaii, interisland passenger counts are up, too. From June 22 to Tuesday, the count averaged 32,987 per day, compared with 30,080 during the same period in 2021.
Hawaii Hotel Alliance President Jerry Gibson said, “Fourth of July travel seems to be pretty good, and the hotels are going to be pretty full. We have great air seat capacity.”
The state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism is projecting that airline seats on scheduled flights to Hawaii will come close to 1.2 million in both July and August. Seats on scheduled flights were nearly that level in March, and last surpassed that level in July 2020.
Gibson said that after the Fourth of July, summer visitor arrivals here are expected to be strong, although not as strong as they were in July 2017, 2018 and 2019. He expects hotel occupancy will hit percentages in the high 80s for the holiday but retreat into the low 80s for the full month.
“A reason is that some U.S. travelers are thinking about the economic situation. They are watching costs rise, and they are saying, ‘Maybe I won’t go on that long trip right now. Maybe I’ll just do something at home.’”
Keith Vieira, principal of KV & Associates, said kamaaina traffic is part of the reason that the Fourth of July holiday weekend and the first half of July are solid.
“We are seeing a little bit of a jump in July, but August and September aren’t holding the same pace that June and July held when we looked at it in May,” Vieira said, noting that a continued lag in international arrivals has kept recovery from pandemic’s upheaval in air travel uneven across the Hawaiian Islands.
Hawaii’s summer travelers are expected to be mostly domestic as they were during the busy spring break period and in the shoulder month of May — the most recent month for which DBEDT could provide visitor data.
DBEDT reported Thursday that visitors to Hawaii in May spent $1.56 billion, an increase of 10.6% compared with the $1.41 billion reported for May 2019. The nominal spending gain in May was domestic-driven as the vast majority of the 776,375 arrivals came from the U.S.
DBEDT Director Mike McCartney said in a statement that May marked the 13th consecutive month that U.S. visitor arrivals have been higher than the same month in 2019.
In May, 453,989 visitors arrived by air from the U.S. West, an increase of 17.1% compared with 387,844 visitors in May 2019. Spending from U.S. West visitors rose 38.8% to $782.7 million. Visitors who came from the U.S. East in May rose 11.4% to 222,144. That group spent $550.3 million in May — up 40.2% from the $392.4 million that visitors spent in May 2019.
Vieira said the lack of international traffic has hurt Oahu more than the neighbor islands, which are more reliant on domestic travelers. While visitor spending in May on Oahu was up 5.9%, spending on all other major islands was up by double digits.
Hawaii Tourism Authority board member Ben Rafter, president and CEO of Springboard Hospitality, advocates for HTA staff to consider coming up with a strategy to shift some of the neighbor island traffic to Oahu.
“With Oahu visitors continuing to be down and Japan not looking like its coming back anytime soon, I think it would be worth it to talk to our market partners to figure out how to shift some of the significant tourism on the neighbor islands over to Oahu,” Rafter said. “Maui, Kauai and Hawaii island are full. … Oahu has more capacity.”
Fred Atkins, general partner of Kauai Kilohana Partners, whose last day on the HTA board was Thursday, said in some cases the busy summer travel season is interfering with visitor satisfaction.
“There was a lady visiting Kilohana who found out I was a general partner there and wanted to convey to me how disappointed she was with her vacation on Kauai,” Atkins said. “It started out with a four-hour wait for a rental car, and there were a number of issues on the island. She texted me after she left, and it took 3-1/2 hours to get through the TSA.”
Atkins said he heard a similar story from a friend who also had to wait 3-1/2 hours at the Maui airport. “He was really concerned and quite upset that elderly people were waiting out in the sun for over two hours.”
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The Associated Press contributed to this story.
