Both commercial airports on Hawaii’s Big Island closed on Saturday after Hurricane Lala was upgraded to a Category 1 storm, with the Hurricane Lala Hawaii airports closure affecting Hilo International Airport and Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport following a directive from the Hawai’i Department of Transportation (HDOT). Widespread flight disruptions extended across the entire Hawaiian archipelago as the storm passed.
According to KTLA, Lala reached Category 1 status at around 9:00 am local time, generating winds of up to 75 miles per hour. The storm had been classified only as a tropical storm the day before, and its rapid intensification ahead of its closest approach to the Big Island caught the timetable of airport operations in a narrow window.
HDOT Orders Closures as Carriers Suspend Big Island Service
Many carriers had already cancelled the bulk of their Saturday service in anticipation of deteriorating conditions, but the HDOT formalised the position by ordering both airports shut. All passengers and most staff were evacuated, with only limited security personnel remaining on site.
In a statement, the HDOT confirmed: ‘As of 8 a.m., carriers have advised there are no flights scheduled for the remainder of the day at ITO and KOA has no flights scheduled past 2 p.m. The Transportation Security Administration has closed the security checkpoints and no passengers are at the airports. State personnel will be onsite to monitor terminal and runway conditions and mitigate impacts.’
Ed Sniffen, Director of the HDOT, addressed the closure directly, stating: ‘We’re definitely looking at Hilo and Kona [airports] opening up tomorrow. We shut everything down today, knowing that airlines were not going to be running flights. Today at Hilo, we shut down at 8 a.m. At two o’clock, we shut down Kona because of the same reason. We are making sure that we have state personnel there overnight to make sure that we can look at the conditions of our runways and our terminals to make sure everything is safe before we start again tomorrow.’ Sniffen added that the HDOT would be in contact with carriers directly to allow operations to resume as soon as conditions permitted.
Passengers with flights to or from Hilo or Kona are being urged to check directly with their airlines, as no definitive reopening times have been announced beyond the expectation of a Sunday resumption.
Disruption Spreads Beyond the Hurricane Lala Hawaii Airports Closures
The eye of Hurricane Lala was not projected to cross directly over any of the Hawaiian Islands, but the storm’s radius brought punishing conditions statewide. Wind speeds within the storm reached up to 140 mph, and flooding, mudslides, and rockfalls were expected to persist even after the centre moved away from the islands.
The scale of disruption on the ground was considerable. According to The Salvation Army, roughly half the state lost power at the height of the storm. A state of emergency remained in effect, and thousands of residents were without electricity as the clean-up began.
Delays and cancellations at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport on Oahu were among the heaviest outside the Big Island, with 37 delays and 49 cancellations recorded on Saturday. Kahului Airport on Maui and Lihue Airport on Kauai also reported disruptions, though on a smaller scale. Sunday figures showed a reduced but still active disruption picture across the archipelago.
Hawaii County Mayor Kimo Alameda acknowledged the impact on residents and visitors while crediting compliance with shelter-in-place guidance: ‘First: I gotta thank our constituents, our Big Island residents and our visitors, for heeding our instructions. They really stayed off the roads. Our message was to stay home; it’s really the safest place. And our residents, they’ve done that. And because of that, it helped us to respond to calls that really matter.’
Road closures caused by flooding and felled power lines and trees added another layer of complexity to the recovery, with clearance and repairs required before shelter-in-place alerts could be lifted. The HDOT has been consolidating weather-related traffic warnings onto a single page to help residents and visitors track conditions.
On the maritime side, the Hawaii Department of Transportation confirmed that all commercial harbours statewide had reopened as of 4:00 pm HST on Sunday, 16 August, offering one concrete marker of the recovery timeline as the broader transport network works toward full resumption.
