Plan on getting to the Maui airport even earlier then before! Airport officials are recommending you now arrive at OGG 3 hours prior to your flight.

A front page piece in the Maui News today warns that traffic at Kahului will be severely hindered due to new anti-terrorism procedures to begin at 4:30AM Thursday (2/27). At that time airport officials will restrict incoming traffic to the airport to only ONE lane. They will also be adding pull-over inspection areas to both the single entrance lane and the airport parking area where they will randomly inspect any vehicles going into the airport (according to the piece, this includes tour busses and delivery trucks).

They are urging rental car drivers to return their cars to the Car rental areas via the back entrance (which I confess I didn't know existed till now) and take the rental company shuttles to the terminal to lessen the number of vehicles in the congestion.The directions they gave are as follows: Turn onto the Hana Highway (towards Wailuku) bearing right at Hobron Avenue, turn right at Amala place and another right at Kaa Street this will take you to the back door of the rental car companies.

I will be flying out Sunday, so I will give you a first hand view of the situation then or earlier if I hear anything from friends.


[This message has been edited by Leisuremiles (edited 02-26-2003).]

Any word if other airports on the islands are following suit?

if so, might not be worthwhile to make a day trip to another island.

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Should be pretty awful. I flew out there twice on Sundays before any new security regulations and it the place was a zoo then.

Checking bags on Sudays (when most tourists are returning home) for both mainland and interisland flights is about as bad as I have ever seen at any US airport. Mid week later PM flights did not seem that bad.
Mike

What a way to ruin a trip to paradise. Three hours in advance???

On the bright side, there is no security at Molokai's main airport. With one exception, the 737 flights on Hawaiian.

I just saw on the morning news that the Feds have lowered the terrorist threat levels, I don't know how (or if) this will effect the above. A friend is flying inter-island to HNL tomorrow so I will let you know what the current situation is.

From what I heard on the radio today the car searches should stop now that the alert level has been downgraded.

The checkpoints and single lane were dismantled only hours after they were set-up due to the lowered threat level. It is something to remember however, if the levels are again raised in the future.

You mean it's going to get *worse* at OGG? It was already the longest procedure I'd ever encountered! With two young kids, we

1) turned in the rental car
2) brought the checked bags to Ag. inspection
3) lugged them over to Aloha baggage check
4) brought bags on to the "test you & your bags for explosives residue" area
5) lined up at security
6) put carry on bags through Ag. inspection #2

The good folks in Hawaii tourism really need to work on this. For a large majority of their tourists, relaxation is the goal. OGG is now, in my experience, the most stressful airport in the nation.

Leisuremiles,

Thanks very much for the useful information about rental car returns at OGG.

Our family is heading to Maui this week and it is good to know alternative solutions should the security level be heightened again.

It's truly unfortunate that current events make life so difficult for all of us.

But we hope to leave those dark thoughts behind long enough to take in a very special Hawaiian experience at our favorite destination, Maui.

Barry

--- Sorry that others see things differently, but it's not Hawaiian tourism that's the problem here.

I respectfully disagree, Barry. Other US airports face the same security rules. Other Hawaiian airports face the same agricultural restrictions. All of them, in my view, do a better job than OGG.

Just bumping this up now that we're at Orange (high) alert status, I'm not sure if they have reimplemented these security measures yet or not as I'm back on the mainland.