Passengers encounter long lines, travel headaches as operations resume at Kona’s airport

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Kona’s international airport reopened early Tuesday after emergency repairs to fix a large pothole on the runway. But things weren’t back to normal.

Passengers stranded overnight encountered long lines as airlines sought to rebook travel.

The runway closure forced the cancellation of dozens of flights.

Oahu resident Kay Smullen was stranded in Kona overnight and was finally able to catch a flight back to Honolulu around 1 p.m. Tuesday.

Over at Honolulu’s Daniel K Inouye International Airport, passengers who were supposed to fly to Kona on Monday got some good news Tuesday after the emergency repairs were completed.

Governor: Kona airport runway pothole was symptom of infrastructure neglect

“More than a dozen airplanes got stuck because of an infrastructure flaw and within a matter of hours by sunrise, they had it figured out. That’s impressive,” said passenger Traver Pearson-Leary.

Others took matters into their own hands, grabbing a rental car from Kona and driving to Hilo to catch a flight to Oahu. “People couldn’t find a hotel. The one guy was saying they wanted $1,200 for one night for that side of the island,” said one passneger. “So we got lucky when we drove all the way over to Hilo and when we checked in they said there was only one my room left.”

The question is if any of the additional expenses passengers had to shell out will be reimbursed.

The state blamed the problem on recent heavy rains.

“This was a weather event that occurred,” said Hawaii DOT Director Ed Sniffen.

“From our perspective, it’s unfortunate that flights were impacted and unfortunate that people travel impacted and occurred additional costs. But this is not unlike any other weather event that blocks off visibility from an airport. It’s very difficult to assign blame for this kind of thing. It happens.”

Hawaiian Airlines said it waived the cost difference for passengers looking to rebook flights and offered a credit to those who wanted to take different airlines.

HNN reached out to the federal Department of Transportation to see how potential compensation for passengers might work with the Hawaii DOT claiming it was a weather-related disruption.

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