A Hawaiian Airlines jet is seen over Central Maui in December 2020. The airline has struggled with Neighbor Island flight delays in recent months but says operations should improve since the reopening of a key runway at Honolulu’s airport. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

Twice in May, Wailuku resident Kawika Maika saw his Hawaiian Airlines flights to Oahu delayed for hours for various reasons, including mechanical issues, canceled flights and no gates to go to upon landing.

Maika is not alone, as other Maui residents have complained for months of delayed and canceled flights and struggles to rebook.

“In Hawaii, our families live all across the islands, it shouldn’t be this expensive or hard to visit our family on a 20 min flight,” Maika said via Facebook Messenger on Tuesday.

But Hawaiian Airlines says things should be much better now since runway 8L at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu reopened on May 27. The runway, primarily used for arriving aircraft, had been under reconstruction since October, the state Department of Transportation said in a news release last month.

“The reopening of runway 8L at Honolulu airport over the Memorial Day holiday has significantly improved our punctuality,” said Alex Da Silva, a spokesman for the airline. “For example, today (Monday, which was the King Kamehameha Day holiday), more than 80 percent of our neighbor island flights are arriving on time, compared to 60 percent when the runway was closed for repairs.”

“We may still experience occasional ground holds at Kahului, but they are less frequent,” Da Silva added, explaining that ground holds involve air traffic control holding departures to manage airport traffic.

“We appreciate our guests’ patience during the eight months that runway 8L was unavailable and we are glad to be running a more punctual operation once again,” he said.

Maui District Airports Manager Marvin Moniz said on Wednesday that with the reopening of the runway on Oahu, “the back up of aircrafts for taxi and takeoffs has diminished for the most part.”

“We also don’t have long gate holds or few, if any, that airlines may have created among themselves for various reasons,” Moniz added.

He explained that a gate hold is when an airline holds on the tarmac until a gate opens up. This could be caused by delays due to issues over maintenance, medical concerns, passengers or fueling.

Back in January, Hawaiian Airlines President and CEO Peter MIngram acknowledged that the airline’s “reliability dropped off” when work began on runway 8L, which is the airline’s main arrival runway at Honolulu airport. He said Hawaiian would make more “tweaks” in the airline schedule to alleviate delays.

Ingram, who was addressing an audience at a Maui Chamber of Commerce luncheon, said that air traffic controllers wanted to get the longer-haul flights that had been flying for six hours or so on the ground first, rather than the interisland flights.

And, with a tight flight schedule, Ingram said things could snowball into long delays if one flight is delayed for 15 minutes and the next flight is also delayed 15 minutes, which all catches up with flights later in the day.

Some residents took to writing letters to The Maui News raising concerns over consistent delays. Frank Gomes of Makawao said he had always selected Hawaiian Airlines to fly with.

“However, Hawaiian has recently shown that they don’t care about any competition,” Gomes wrote in a letter published on May 16. “Besides cancelled and delayed flights, it has become impossible to book a flight or to check in to your flight online.”

Besides issues with the runway, Hawaiian in recent months has also run into technical problems, some of which were out of the airline’s hands.

On May 12, two planes bound for Kahului Airport were forced to divert to Honolulu after a temporary internet outage impacted Hawaiian Airlines systems and headquarters in Hawaii. The incident was due to a power disruption at the airline’s third-party data vendor during scheduled maintenance, the company said.

The internet outage was unrelated to the airline’s passenger service system transition in April, which also caused problems. After the scheduled system outage from April 18-19, there were still lingering issues, including with check-in and ticketing bookings following the transition.

Maika’s delays were caused by a variety of factors. On May 9, he was set to take the first flight out of Maui to Oahu. The plane left the gate but then five minutes later turned around and went back. There was no explanation until 20 minutes later when passengers were told it was mechanical issues, Maika said. They sat on the plane for close to an hour and then had to disembark. They were told to report to guest services, where he waited in line with close to 80 others. He was later told to call reservations.

The airline was going to put him on another flight, but he declined, as that flight would not accommodate the extra comfort seat that he already paid for. He eventually made it to Oahu at 12:15 p.m. on a later flight, shortly before his doctor’s appointment at 1 p.m.

On May 25, Maika woke up at 3 a.m. in preparation for his 5 a.m. flight, only to find out it had been canceled at 2 a.m. He arranged for a new flight that was supposed to leave Maui at 10:15 a.m., which he chose to ensure he had the extra comfort seat he had already paid for that was not available on earlier flights.

But this flight did not leave on time either, as passengers waited for about an hour on the plane and finally got to Oahu at noon. He said the reason they were given was that there was no gates available on Oahu.

Da Silva said gate availability can be limited during peak hours, which is mid-morning through early afternoon, particularly in Kahului, but the closure of runway 8L on Oahu “had a more significant impact on our inter island reliability because air traffic control would often hold our neighbor island departures to prioritize transpacific arrivals.”

The work on runway 8L involved construction of a 1,000-lineal-foot stretch of Portland cement concrete at the threshold of the runway, joined with 7,500 lineal feet of polymer-modified asphalt.

Runway safety features, such as edge lights and navigational aids, were also upgraded, a DOT news release said.

During the construction period, all aircraft had to arrive on runway 4R. The reopening of 8L on May 27 restored the use of four runways at Honolulu airport.

“Runway safety is a top priority for our airports,” DOT Director Ed Sniffen said in the news release. “When you have aircraft weighing hundreds of tons carrying hundreds of people, it is crucial that they have a good surface to land on. We appreciate the patience of the travelers and airlines with the reduced capacity and the hard work put in by our partners to get 8L ready for the summer travel season.”

There are still nightly closures of 8L from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. to complete the improvements to the runway. On May 26, the DOT said the night closures would last for 140 days, or nearly five months.

Da Silva said the closures are not affecting operations as it falls outside Hawaiian Airlines’ peak flying hours.

* Staff Writer Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.