Kalaeloa - potential to alleviate HNL crunch?

[kalakoa]

Air travel brings money to the islands. If that's not important, fine, shut it all down.

[terracore]

I understand what you are saying Geochem but looking at the matter practically, during the day Hilo gets a jet in about once per hour. And also the same jet going out. So an arrival or departure once every 30 minutes. How would making Hilo a Southwest hub change the quality of life for people who have elected to live next to an airport that has existed since 1929? Would they even notice the difference? Hilo used to get 300,000 (overseas alone) passengers a year in the 1970's.

Making Hilo an airline hub wouldn't come close to scratching the surface of what Hilo used to be, and the jets that existed back then were many times louder than the technology in use today.

[Chunkster]

From Southwest's point of view, they want to maximize their traffic between the mainland and Hawaii. What we've seen of their interisland service so far seems to me to be mainly a feed for that or a way to get a little extra business as opposed to a major focus. Do you really think people from Oahu who comprise 75-80% of the originating mainland traffic at this end are going to want to connect through Hilo when there are multiple non-stops out of HNL? Do you really think tourists who want to visit islands other than the Big Island are going to want to connect through ITO to get there?

Despite the fact that Southwest doesn't interline with any of the other major airlines, I don't think they would want to be stuck out there at Barber's Point all alone. There are people who will use Southwest's interisland service to connect to other airlines' flights in HNL, particularly passengers wanting to go east of the Rockies. Southwest's avoidance of redeyes (up to now) makes those eastward connections require an overnight stay in Oakland or one of the other cities in California they will soon offer.

[TomK]

I don't think HNL is going to have any problems dealing with additional flights by Southwest. It has two runways and whenever I go there, many gates are empty. Hilo simply doesn't have the resources for it to be a major hub, I doubt it would be attractive to the majority of travelers, and where to passengers stay if there's a major cancellation of flights?

Kalaeloa has a similar problem although not as bad although it's a long way from Waikiki and that's where most tourists want to go.

[Obie]

The Hawaiians were there before the airport and then a number of them were uprooted to enlarge the airport.

"What is now known as the Keaukaha Community Association (KCA), in its infancy were the members of K#363;hi#333; Settlement. KCA's primary activity then as it is now is to “…better the conditions of the native Hawaiians.” Over the past 86 years, it has existed under other names including the Mothers Club and after the relocation of many of our residents to Panaewa to make way for the expansion of the Hilo Airport it was called the Keaukaha-Panaewa Community Association."