A Guide To Inter-island Travel In Hawaii

Posted on Tue, Mar 24, 2009 by Sheila

From my many trips to Hawaii, I’ve determined that island hopping in Hawaii may not be as straightforward as you might think. In fact, navigating from island to island can sometimes be confusing. To help clear confusion , I’ve created this guide to inter-island travel.

Two things you need to know from the start:

The predominate method of inter-island travel is by air. Most people assume there’s a huge network of ferries to transport you from island to island. That’s not really the case in Hawaii. Ferry service is only available between Maui and Lanai and Maui and Molokai.
The vast majority of flights route through Oahu’s Honolulu Airport (HNL).

With Oahu’s Honolulu Airport being the central hub of Hawaii, all the other islands are often referred to as “neighboring islands”. If you want to travel from neighboring island to neighboring island, most, if not all, the flights will connect in HNL. However, there is a limited number of direct flights between neighboring islands. I advise that you search for direct flights when they are available, as they can save you hours of needless transit time.

So, as you are searching for inter-island flights between say Kauai (LIH) and the Big Island (either Kona’s KOA or Hilo’s ITO), for example, the vast majority of flights for that route include a connection in Honolulu (HNL). In that example, if you aren’t careful in selecting your flights, you can end up spending upwards of six hours in transit for what should be about an hour long flight if it was direct. If a direct flight is not available, then be careful to choose a connecting flight that minimizes the connection time.

Here, I want to provide you with the tools you need to find inter-island travel providers. Before you plan your island hops, you’d be wise to consider the transit times and most direct routes first. We’ll start out looking at the air options.

Inter-island Travel by Air

Here are all the inter-island air carriers along with a few notes including some of the local background. (Note that you can visit the individual sites directly to determine their current deals. Just click on the name of each carrier.)

Hawaiian Airlines
This airline is most established and has the largest inter-island fleet of all jet engines. They fly to all the major islands, but only offer code-share service via Island Air to Molokai, Lanai, and West Maui. Hawaiian Airlines is my preferred airline for inter-island flights. From my experience, their inter-island aircraft is larger (e.g. jets), roomier, and cleaner than the others. As another benefit, they usually provide free maps to your destination island, too.

Island Air
This established airline flies to all the islands. See their route map. They use a smaller aircraft, turboprop jet engines, in comparison to Hawaiian Airlines. I’ve found that their luggage policies are inconsistently enforced.

go! Mokulele Airlines
In October, 2009, Mokulele and go! announced a joint venture to combine forces. (Note: this guide was originally published March, 2009 and this joint venture is an update to the original.) The combination of go! and Mokulele create the second largest inter-island carrier in Hawaii, with Hawaiian Airlines being the largest.

While the joint merger is being worked out, both companies will still maintain their individual Web sites: go! Airlines and Mokulele Airlines. As I learn about Web site changes, I will update this post. For initial information about customer service and merger changes, see this link.

Click here to see Mokulele’s route map. Then click here to see go!’s route map. As far as the type of aircraft the merged companies will use, here’s a statement from the company: “Customers booking flights either with go! or with Mokulele will be flown on CRJ-200 Regional Jet aircraft operated by Mesa Airlines. Mokulele Express flights between city pairs: Honolulu- Moloka’i; Kahului-Moloka’i and Kona-Kahului will continue to be flown on the Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft operated by Mokulele Airlines.”

Pacific Wings
This smaller airline offers service to all island except for Kauai. From this system map, you can see that this small company offers flights to some of the smaller airports like Kapalua on Maui and Kalaupapa on Molokai. This company also offers charter service.

*** General Advice For Finding the Cheapest and Shortest Flights ***
When you are looking for an inter-island flight, it’s best to explore all your options. I would advise you to search the individual airlines websites as sometimes they offer better rates if you book directly with them online. If you are short on time, use a flight search engine like Kayak just making sure that you notice the number of stops, e.g. connections, and whether the flight is a code share or not.

Inter-island Travel by Ferry

After the recent downfall of the Hawaii Superferry, there are only two inter-island ferry options and they both connect to Maui. Just a word of caution — be advised that afternoon ferry rides can be pretty rough across the Auau Channel (between Lanai and Maui) and the Pailolo Channel (between Maui and Molokai.) The winds across the water are typically stronger in the afternoons creating bigger waves across the channels. I am not prone to sea sickness, but I almost lost my cookies on the Maui-Molokai Ferry on an afternoon ride.

Here are the limited ferry options that are currently available in Hawaii.

Maui-Lanai Expeditions
This ferry offers scheduled ferry service from Lahaina on Maui to Lanai at Manalele Bay. In addition to the ferry service, you can purchase Lanai tour packages with this ferry service.

Maui-Molokai Ferry
This ferry offers offers scheduled service from Lahaina to Molokai at Kaunakakai Harbor. From there you can pre-arrange to pick up a rental or choose an option for fully guided tours.

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I have used all the above services except go! and Pacific Wings. I felt like I received good service from all my experiences.