Coming to Hawaii? How to get here from there

May 12th, 2008

One of the things Yaling and I noticed during our vacation to Florida this time was that every time I mentioned we were from Hawaii people had some kind of Hawaii story.  Whether it be the time they hiked diamond head or where they had their honeymoon or even the cost of food when they were here, this beautiful state has touched so many people.  The most common question we got however  was,  "how long does it take to get from there to here?"  meaning how long does it take to fly over to Hawaii.  So the minute I got back today I surveyed a few cities that we service and have compiled a little list for you to get an idea about how long it’s been a taking to get here.

Times will always of course vary depending on whether or not you have a connection, which most people do when traveling from the East Coast and Midwest.  For example, we just came from Miami and connected through Newark, the layover time was almost 4 hours!.  We actually like our time on the ground but don’t recommend these kinds of long layovers because with that layover, our flight from end to end was almost 15 hours.  In most cases if you’re planning  properly you won’t have more than a two hour layover in any one hub.

Another issue to consider as  consolidation occurs in the airline industry, is that major hubs seem to favor one destination over another for certain airlines.  For example, Continental uses Houston and Newark very often to connect people.  Delta uses Atlanta,  so depending on where you live,  you may want to select an airline that has a close hub which will bring down your travel time.  The airlines that offer nonstops from the East Coast and Midwest are Delta with a non stop  flight from Atlanta to Honolulu, Continental with a nonstop flight from Newark,  United with a nonstop from Chicago O’Hare and American has a nonstop from Dallas.  In most cases you will either connect in one of these cities or be lucky enough to live near there and fly straight over. If you know you have to have a connection if you’re flying here the rule of thumb is just to add to a half hours to the flight time and you’ll be pretty close to calculating your exact travel time.

Here’s a list of flight times (non-stop) from some of the major cities we service.

Newark 9.25 hrs
Los Angeles - 5.75 hrs
Atlanta  - 9.1 hrs
San Francisco - 5.5 hrs
Seattle - 5.75 hrs
Denver 6.9 hrs
Minneapolis 8 hrs
Las Vegas - 7 hrs
Phoenix - 8.25 hrs
Salt Lake City - 6.5 hrs
Chicago - 9 hrs
New York - 12.5 hr

Entry Filed under: Big Island, Hawaii Vacation Links, Maui, Oahu