Five major airport runway projects totaling more than $520.7 million are moving forward at Hawaii airports this year due to an increase in federal dollars made possible by new types of grant programs, some of which provide multiple awards for a single project.

The state Department of Transportation’s Airports Administrator Ford Fuchigami said the Biden administration has made new types of federal grant programs available, which has accelerated key airport modernization projects, including the runway projects, across the state.

He said billions in federal funding are available to airports across the nation through grants programs, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Airport Improvement Program and Supplemental Discretionary grants. Since 2022, he said, the state has benefited from being able to pursue multiple grants for single projects.

“There’s so much more federal dollars that are available to us, and it’s very important that we capture those federal dollars. By capturing those federal dollars, what it does is that it reduces the fees that the airlines have to pay to keep the airport running,” Fuchigami said during a recent airport update at the 2024 Annual Outlook & Economic Forecast Forum for the Hawaii chapters of the Pacific Asia Travel Association and the Travel and Tourism Research Association.

Since Hawaii airports are self- sufficient and special-funded, and do not receive state general fund money, Fuchigami said having additional federal funding available “has made a tremendous step for us in terms of moving forward.”

“We wouldn’t be able to do (five) runway projects this year if it weren’t for the federal grants,” he said, adding that other sources of revenue come from revenue bonds and revenue from tenants, airlines and concessionaires.

The runway projects are part of more than 60 projects with a collective cost estimate of $1.73 billion in the state’s airports modernization plan, which spans the Hawaiian Islands. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser recently had a chance to look at some of them in Honolulu during a private tour led by Fuchigami at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.

Fuchigami said those projects, which started in 2009 and are expected to run through 2030, aim “to meet a basket of priorities, including preserving existing assets, providing additional capacity for air traffic needs, enhancing safety and security, achieving sustainability and improving customer service, among other objectives.”

They range from minimizing light attraction impacts to threatened and endangered seabirds, to human safety concerns like fixing Kona’s only runway, which disrupted flights and stranded dozens of passengers when it was shut down from late afternoon Jan. 15 to early morning Jan. 16 to repair runway cracks.

“Recently, I had to shut down the (Kona) runway because of the situation where a pothole popped up because of the weather. But because of the fact that we are able to get multiple federal grants, it’s going to be that much easier to move these projects forward,” Fuchigami said.

He said the $87.6 million runaway project at Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keahole already was on the books before the closure. Fuchigami said a construction contract has been awarded, and the project is slated to start in November. The state has submitted fiscal year 2024 applications for a multiyear federal grant for more than $16.8 million and another application for more than $48.4 million.

The state is 84% complete with the $136 million Honolulu Runway 8L Widening, Phase 2. Fuchigami said the state now is working on closing out the project. The project is supported by more than $110.2 million across two federal grants.

He said the state has received $52 million across two federal grants to relocate Lihue Runaway 3-21, which is estimated to cost $166 million. Fuchigami added that the state has applied for another $83 million federal grant, and is optimistic that it will be approved with $20 million to come at first.

He said the Lihue Airport runaway lacks a required 1,000 feet of clearance at the end because the addition would run into the ocean. He said it took six years to find a solution, which will extend the back end of the runway and cut off the current end to provide the clearance.

Fuchigami said that at Kahului Airport a $10.3 million resurfacing — an asphalt milling and replacement — of Runway 2-20 is anticipated to start this month. He said that will buy the state another five to seven years to consider reconstruction possibilities. Fuchigami said there are discussions of a parallel runway, which could require moving Hana Highway to get clearance.

A $23.9 million design project to reconstruct the entire runway is on hold until an environmental impact statement is completed, which will follow a pre-EIS process.

“We are doing the pre-EIS as we speak. This project after this mill and replace is done could cost us up to $1 billion,” Fuchigami said. “A pre-EIS will give us a good determination in terms of what is our next best step.”

Construction started in February on a $120 million project to restructure various runway and taxiway shoulders at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, which received three federal grants totaling $76.5 million.

More federal money was recently announced for other projects. The Federal Aviation Administration in February awarded $30.6 million for Hawaii airport improvements as part of a nationwide announcement on the distribution of some $970 million in nationwide federal grants for fiscal year 2024 from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Some $22 million of this latest grant will go to the Honolulu airport for concrete spalling repairs to the Terminal 2 roadway for the Wiki Wiki shuttle, expansion of passenger sidewalks and improvements to lighting and electrical systems at the Diamond Head Concourse.

Another $8.6 million will go to the Maui airport to offset $49.3 million in anticipated costs for the new two-story Transportation Security Administration screening checkpoint facility at the south end of the ticket lobby. That’s on top of a previous $22 million grant from the FAA for the Maui checkpoint project. The facility will include six new TSA screening lanes, and a pedestrian bridge over the existing service road will connect the new checkpoint facility to Hold Room A.

In addition to the federal grants, Fuchigami said the current modernization phase has been supported by the continued recovery of Hawaii’s tourism after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Due to revenue reductions and economic un­certainty, the previous administration put a significant portion of the construction and upgrade program on hold,” Fuchigami said. “However, with the quick recovery of domestic leisure traffic, the majority of the projects planned have been moved forward.”

He said airport revenue has fully recovered from pandemic impacts, with total operating revenue for fiscal year 2023, which ended June 30, at $490 million, compared with $441 million in fiscal 2019, primarily due to higher rental car revenue.

“Duty-free revenues remain depressed due to lower international traffic level and lack of Waikiki operations, which we continue to discuss with DFS,” Fuchigami said.

However, he added that nearly all on-airport concessionaires are open.

“Vendors are still finding it a challenge to find sufficient workforce. We are continuing efforts to get more local restaurants into the concessions,” Fuchigami said.

He added that airports continue to prioritize customer experience improvements, especially at the state’s two busiest airports: Daniel K. Inouye International and Kahului.

He said the J.D. Power North America Airport Satisfaction Study, which ranks airports throughout the U.S., “has really been a thorn in my side for many, many years.”

“Honolulu, as far as I’ve been associated with the airports, has been second to last. Maui has always been second to the last until last year, when it dropped to the bottom,” he said. “When I came back to the airport, I said, ‘I’ve had enough of this.’”

Keeping everybody happy is a tall order given that each year some 37 million passengers board and exit planes throughout the state’s 15 airports, with approximately 57% of them on Oahu, 21% in Kahului, 10% in Kona, 9% in Lihue, 3% in Hilo and another 1% scattered throughout the rest of the system.

Still, Fuchigami said he is determined to improve efficiency and customer experience at state airports. He obtained the J.D. Power rating document and learned that reviews were based on overall satisfaction, airport arrivals and departure, check-in and baggage check, security, terminal facilities, food and beverage and retail services, and baggage claim.

He said that he read the J.D. Power results and discovered that everybody hates the Herman Miller chairs and loves the breezeways. Fuchigami found that some issues like arrivals and departures, which were based on how you get to the airport and issues like traffic, were not a straightforward fix.

However, modernization projects have improved some ratings.

“We have fully modernized (in Honolulu) the Mauka Concourse, Ewa Concourse, Diamond Head Concourse, and restrooms statewide, and will continue to improve our facilities, way-finding and community outreach,” Fuchigami said.

“However, as noted in the J.D. Power survey, several other locations of the (Honolulu) terminal have not been renovated, affecting our ratings. Our upgrades are constrained at this time by the existing structures that make up the terminals until we can start reconstructing them,” he said. “That being said, since we started addressing the J.D. Power survey during the Green administration, we continue to implement measures that will improve the efficiency and customer experience of our airports before the next survey is released in October.”

Fuchigami said that he has created a task force to address the concerns outlined in the J.D. Power survey. He said he also has challenged consultants to take an out-of-the box approach to “anything that we would want to see to improve the customer experience both pre- and post-security.”

Fuchigami said he is working on addressing concerns at the neighbor island airports, which were originally built for interisland travel. He said optimization plans have been developed; however, they have sometimes been stymied by community destination management goals.

Case in point, he said all capital improvement plan projects at the Lihue Airport were canceled under a previous administration after community pushback over a master plan that would have included adding three additional gates and a consolidated rental car facility, or CONRAC.

“As far as I’m concerned, those projects are deferred. We are going to move forward with it,” he said. “It’s my job to go out and explain to the community that we are doing this for the benefit of the entire state.”

He said he believes the state will get more community support on Kauai once it is understood that the CONRAC planned for Lihue occupies a much smaller footprint than the ones in Honolulu and Maui, while reducing operational expense for car rental companies.

Fuchigami also clarified that the plan to add three gates to the Lihue Airport encompasses a 10-year period and that more gates are needed to reduce the time jets spend on the tarmacs burning carbon and emitting greenhouse gases.

GETTING A FINANCIAL BOOST

Multiple federal grants have offset costs of huge state projects. A positive development for project timelines at state airports has been the ability since 2022 to apply for multiple grants for single projects. Here are some projects that have earned multiple grant awards in the past two years:

>> A $120 million project to restructure various runway and taxiway shoulders at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, which received three federal grants totaling $76.5 million.

>> A $166.4 million project to relocate Runway 3-21 at Lihue Airport earned three grants worth more than $137.4 million.

>> A $27.6 million project to replace high-pressure sodium high-mast apron lights at Kahului Airport and Lanai Airport with full cut-off LED light fixtures to minimize light attraction impacts to threatened and endangered seabirds earned $22.76 million in federal funding between two grants.

>> A $52.9 million project to design and construct a new checkpoint facility at Kahului Airport at the south end of the ticket lobby was approved for $30.6 million in funding from two federal grants.

Source: State Department of Transportation Airports Division