Hilo International Airport

Hilo International Airport is the principal commercial airport for the eastern (Hilo) side of the Island of Hawai'i — the largest and geologically youngest of the Hawaiian Islands — and one of four commercial airports serving the Big Island alongside Kona International (KOA), Waimea-Kohala (MUE), and Upolu (UPP). Located on the Hilo Bay coast at just 38 ft (12 m) elevation, 2 mi (3 km) east of downtown Hilo, the airport serves Hilo, Puna, Hamakua, and the windward side of the Big Island, with a catchment that extends to Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park and the summit support of Mauna Kea's astronomical observatories. ITO holds 'international' status — a legacy designation from the 1967 to 2013 era when it hosted scheduled international service, principally to Tokyo and across the Pacific — though international scheduled service has been absent in recent years. The airport handles 6 routes across 4 destinations through 4 airlines. Hawaiian Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and Mokulele Airlines operate the core schedule. The dominant market is the Honolulu shuttle between ITO and HNL on O'ahu, one of the most frequent inter-island routes in the Hawaiian network, supplemented by Kahului (Maui) and direct U.S. mainland service. Southwest Airlines operates seasonal mainland service to Phoenix, Oakland, and Las Vegas that has progressively grown since 2019. The airport's traffic is heavily weighted toward leisure and local-resident inter-island travel, with substantially lower business traffic than KOA on the drier Kona side of the island. The primary asphalt runway 08/26 measures 9,800 ft (2,987 m), with a secondary crosswind runway 03/21 at 5,600 ft (1,707 m). The 9,800 ft main runway is long enough for widebody operations and is a legacy of the international era. The airport is operated by the Hawai'i Department of Transportation Airports Division. Hilo's location on the windward (wet) side of the Big Island produces frequent rain — Hilo is among the wettest cities in the United States — and the climate is a defining factor in operational planning. The airport is also historically significant as the site of a 1960 tsunami that destroyed the adjacent Waiākea neighborhood.