Most Maui flights continue on despite mass cancellations

Interisland flights limited on Southwest as carrier struggles to get back on track

Despite thousands of flights getting canceled or delayed across the nation during the holiday season, most travel arrangements at Kahului Airport have continued uninterrupted, according to an airport official.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Mainland flights between the U.S. West Coast and Hawaii as well as interisland flights have been generally fine, Maui Airports District Manager Marvin Moniz said. It's the planes arriving or departing from cities experiencing winter storms that are getting canceled or having major delays.

After heavy snow swept through parts of the Mainland last week, Southwest Airlines called off more than 2,600 flights on the East Coast for public health and safety, which caused multiple delays and postponed holiday plans for fliers, the Associated Press reported. Tracking service FlightAware also showed that the airline canceled 2,500 more flights nationwide for today and another 1,200 for Thursday.

The airline, which is a major carrier in places like Denver, Chicago Midway, Las Vegas, Baltimore and Dallas, had said many pilots and flight attendants were out of position to work their flights, according to the AP.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that his agency planned to examine the causes of Southwest's cancellations and whether the airline was meeting its legal obligations to stranded customers, the AP reported.

"With consecutive days of extreme winter weather across our network behind us, continuing challenges are impacting our customers and employees in a significant way that is unacceptable," Southwest said in a statement to The Maui News on Tuesday. "And, our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning. We're working with Safety at the forefront to urgently address wide-scale disruption by rebalancing the airline and repositioning crews and our fleet ultimately to best serve all who plan to travel with us."

There have been cancellations from all carriers, Moniz said, but Southwest Airlines has had "the brunt of it" these past few days as the company is still recovering from scheduling and operational challenges.

There have been about two to three cancellations at Kahului Airport over the past few days and some customers have experienced minor delays.

Southwest spokesperson Alyssa Foster told The Maui News that "we plan to operate a reduced schedule by flying roughly one third of our schedule for the next several days" across the country.

"The situation remains fluid," Foster added.

Southwest, which marked three years of serving the Hawaiian Islands in April, has no interisland flights available for today, Thursday or Friday between Kahului Airport and Honolulu leading up to New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, according to its booking website. Some options are available to fly on Saturday, New Year's Eve.

Without this carrier supporting travel between the island leading up to the historically busy weekend, more folks will have to fly with Hawaiian Airlines, where many flights are "booked pretty solid" from Thursday to around Jan. 5, Moniz said. Sunday, New Year's Day, should be mellow.

There is typically more traveling between islands and states to celebrate with family and friends and to attend events, he added. On an average day, about 10,000 passengers arrive and 11,000 depart from Kahului Airport. During the holidays, arrivals and departures each total about 13,000 to 14,000.

Parking at Kahului Airport has been limited but getting better because employees have been parking outside the public lot, he said. TSA lines haven't been "too bad," but he still advised travelers to arrive at the airport early enough to check in and get through security.

"I would recommend that if you're traveling to the Mainland, get here about two and a half to three hours early, processes are a little long with baggage," he said. "Interisland, I would say about two hours earlier."

* Dakota Grossman can be reached at dgrossman@mauinews.com.