Maui Airport Expansion

Will, construction has finally started on Maui's airport expansion. We saw it first-hand when we drove from Costco down to the Hana Highway on the way home the other night. Construction is moving ahead.

Back in 1998, the State Legislature approved $180 million to strengthen the existing runway and add another 2,800 feet to it. That plan received a lot of opposition from local residents who didn't want the airport to be elevated to "international status", because it would bring too many visitors to the island. So the State's plan was amended to drop the extension.

But Maui is already the second busiest airport in Hawaii (after Honolulu), in a State where tourism is our number one form of income. I firmly believe that it is only a matter of time before the airport runway is lengthened to accommodate the larger planes. In a recent article by Maui Weekly it was revealed that the airport will probably be forced into growing into the "big city" style airport that so many wanted to avoid. The Kalului Airport is receiving a $2.3 million "face-lift."

Maui is just too popular to hold down people's interest and desire to come here. Maui really is the best of the Hawaiian islands. I do not believe that it is only a matter of time before the full-on expansion of the runway takes place. Certainly, a lot of work needs to be done on Maui's inadequate road system that has its own traffic jams.

Last Monday night was a classic case for us. An accident on Piilani Highway in Kihei closed the road and forced all of the north-south traffic down to Kihei Road. I was on his way to our evening wedding, but ended up losing an hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic congestion caused by the accident. Kihei needs more roads running north-south to avoid similar road congestion.

Fortunately for us, our limo driver was picking up our couple, and they had no problems getting to the wedding site. And because Susan was in a separate car, she was able to get everything ready for the wedding until I was able to arrive. As a company, we always strive to keep things organized. So we keep in contact back and forth with all of our vendors on our cell phones, keeping each other aware of road conditions, weather and how crowded our wedding beach is.