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Airport introduction and chapter structure overview

Last reviewed: December 9, 2016 ~12 min read

Honolulu International Airport (HNL) is one of the world\'s largest, oldest, and most beautiful airports.

As the principal aviation gateway of the city and county of Honolulu on Oahu in the State of Hawaii, HNL is also identified as one of the busiest airports in the United States. Total traffic now exceeds 21 million passengers a year and is rising (Honolulu International Airport, 2016).

Owned and operated by the State of Hawaii Department of Transportation, HNL covers 4,520 acres of fast and submerged land. The airport itself is larger than the major resort destination of Waikiki, which is located 10 miles to the south (Honolulu International Airport, 2016).

HNL has four active runways, including the 12,000-foot Reef Runway. When it was built, the Reef Runway was the world\'s first major runway built entirely offshore (Honolulu International Airport, 2016). The airport is served by 27 international and domestic carriers, two interisland airlines, and four commuter airlines.

Within the airport, passengers are transported from the Main Terminal Ticket Lobbies to 47 gates and holding rooms in the Central, Diamond Head and Ewa Concourses, and the Interisland and Commuter Terminals via Wiki Wiki buses. There are eight Federal Government agencies located within the airport complex, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Agriculture, Drug Enforcement Agency, Fish and Wildlife Service, Post Office, Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Transportation Security Administration. Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam (JBPHH) and HNL operate as a joint use facility and share runways and taxiways.

At any given daytime or evening hour, an estimated 10,000 people are in the airport complex as passengers, employees or visitors. Approximately 15,000 people work at the airport every day and another 20,000 depend on the airport daily for their livelihood. HNL has a workforce of 550 employees, half of whom are custodians and maintenance personnel. The airport has its own retail stores, restaurants and bars, business center, automated teller machines, insurance companies, currency exchange, jail, freeway, traffic lights, post office, and light industry. The state operates two Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting stations, one adjacent to the Reef Runway and the other near the Interisland Terminal.

The airport works closely with the Airline Committee of Hawaii, the Airport Concessionaires Committee, the Federal Aviation Administration and other federal agencies, and Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam (JBPHH) in the operation of the airport. Honolulu International also manages Kalaeloa Airport (JRF) and Dillingham Field (HDH). Kalaeloa, the former Barbers Point Naval Air Station, was designated as the general aviation reliever airport for HNL on July 1, 1999. Kalaeloa is also an alternate landing site for military and commercial airlines and is used on a daily basis by the Coast Guard. Dillingham Field is a specialized general aviation airport used primarily by gliders and parachutists.

Major improvements are in the works for Hawaii\'s busiest airport, Honolulu International, which brings millions of visitors to the islands each year and serves as a major hub that links the United States mainland with Asia and destinations beyond. These needed airport improvements will not only enhance the traveler experience and improve efficiency and safety, but also create jobs and stimulate the state\'s economy. The ultimate goal is to transform Hawaii\'s major airports into world-class facilities over the next decade, so they can meet the future needs of island residents and visitors alike. This $2.7 billion program will be funded through airport user fees, which include airline rents and landing fees, federal grants, passenger facility charges, and airport revenue bonds that will be paid back with airport user fees.

The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) \"identifies nearly 3,400 existing and proposed airports that are significant to national air transportation and thus eligible to receive Federal grants under the Airport Improvement Program (AIP),\" (FAA, 2016). NPIAS classifies HNL as a \"large/medium hub.\" According to the FAA Master Record, HNL has an NPIAS/Federal Agreement classification as NGPSY3. HNL also has a weather station, control tower, and is not just for civilian but also military use, with military classification at A level (\"Airport Details for PHNL -- ACTIVE,\" 2014).

Chapter 2: Airside

Airside comprises runways, taxiways, cargo facility, tore, and any rescue equipment and infrastructure like aircraft rescue and firefighting (ARFF). The State of Hawaii does provide ARFF services at HNL, and in fact has three stations there. Two of them are at the HNL airside itself, but the third is adjacent at the Hickam Air Force Base (AFB). Hickam AFB shares runways with HNL, but has their own crash station (ARFF Apparatus Feature, 2009).

HNL has \"more than 450,000 square feet of warehouse space and more than one million square feet of cargo ramp area,\" located at five different sites in nine different buildings owned by Federal Express, Hawaiian Airlines, Kallita/Pacific Air Cargo, United Airlines, and United Parcel Service, and the State of Hawaii, which leases to Continental/Japan Air Lines and Delta/American Airlines (Honolulu International Airport, 2016). Most cargo at HNL is in transit, and most of it is bound for Japan (Honolulu International Airport, 2016).

The FAA maintains an air traffic control facility at HNL, which \"centralizes the Honolulu Center Radar Approach Control (CERAP), the Hawaii-Pacific System Manage Office (SMO), Honolulu Airport Traffic Control Tower (ATCT) and the Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON),\" (Honolulu International Airport, 2016).

A FOD hazard exists on all taxiways and runways, but especially on runway 4L/22R (\"FAA INFORMATION EFFECTIVE 10 NOVEMBER 2016,\" 2016). HNL runway data is as follows:

Runway

Size (L x W) in ft.

Surface

Condition

Aircraft Weight Category

08L/26R

12312 x 150

Asphalt

Good

Single -- 80; Double -- 200; Double Tandem -- 400; Dual Double Tandem -- 780

08R/26L

12000 x 200

Asphalt

Good

Single -- 80; Double -- 170; Double Tandem -- 400; Dual Double -- 780

04R/22L

9000 x 150

Asphalt

Good

Single -- 100; Double -- 200; Double Tandem -- 400; Dual Double -- 850

04L/22R

6952 x 150

Asphalt

Good

Single -- 100; Double -- 200; Double Tandem -- 400; Dual Double -- 850

08W/26W

5000 x 300

Water

n/a

n/a

04W/22W

3000 x 150

Water

n/a

n/a

Chapter 3: Landside

Landside consists of all land access points, focusing on the main terminals of the airport but also its massive parking infrastructure. HNL has several passenger access and drop-off points, including several parking structures including Interisland Parking Structure (Lot M), Overseas Parking Structure (Lot D), which \"will fill up first,\" (Honolulu International Airport, 2016). There are a total of 6,000 spaces in Overseas, Interisland, Commuter, and International parking structures (Honolulu International Airport, 2016).

\"Travelers also have the option to park in the International Parking Structure (Lot A) and the Economy Parking (Lot B),\" (Honolulu International Airport, 2016). There is also a Cellular Telephone waiting area for pickups, free of charge for less than one hour. The city bus arrives and departs on the second floor level of the airport; HNL has a ground floor and a second floor. Terminals A-H are located at Ground level:

The full landside map of HNL:

Aircraft parking includes landing and hangar parking. There are several gates, including 29 Overseas Terminal wide-body gates, 13 Interisland Terminal gates, and 13 Commuter Terminal gates. Total terminal area is 3.75 million square feet.

Chapter 4: Airport Security

HNL has security screening for both staff and passengers. Staff may need fingerprinting and Security Identification Display Area (SIDA) badging (http://gpcprod.spo.hawaii.gov/spo2/health/rfp103f/attachments/rfp10051373424297.pdf). At HNL, there are a total of 550 Airport Employees that may need AOA and/or SIDA screening, but 15,000 additional staff will also get cleared.

There are separate Air Operations Area (AOA) badging requirements. The AOA and SIDA areas are designated as being Sterile Areas. HNL\'s regulations comply or exceed the parameters outlined by the Department of Homeland Security (2004), which collects SIDA and Sterile Area Workers personal data including \"full name, aliases, date of birth, citizenship, gender, race, height, weight, eye color, hair color, fingerprints, place of birth, social security number, address, employer\'s name, and employer\'s address.\" In this way, all workers in the SIDA and other Sterile areas have been thoroughly cleared. Currently, fingerprints remain mandatory in addition to regular name checks.

HNL is a Category X airport and has 19 passenger security lanes. Passengers with boarding passes go through Transportation Security Administration\'s (TSA) checkpoints, where they are generally required to remove shoes, use plastic bins for scanning carry on items, remove metal items from pockets, remove jackets and other outerwear, and remove computers from carry-ons.

Chapter 5: Budget

The Airports Division of the Hawaii Department of Transportation publishes an audited financial report annually. The department does not break down operating budgets on a per-airport basis, but Honolulu accounts for 57.7% of passenger traffic in the state airport system. So an approximate total can be extrapolated from the overall airports budget (HIDOT, 2015):

Overall Budget ($ 000s)

HNL Approximate Budget ($ 000s)

Operating Revenue

331,939

Operating Revenue

191,529

Operating Expenses

253,554

Operating Expenses

146,301

Operating Income

78,385

Operating Income

45,228

Depreciation

88,433

Depreciation

51,026

Operating Loss

-10,048

Operating Loss

- 5,798

Non-operating Revenue

100,873

Non-operating Revenue

58,204

Income

90,825

Income

52,406

Capital Contributions

36,680

Capital Contributions

21,164

Increase in net position

127,505

Increase in net position

73,570

Operating revenues include landing fees, aeronautical revenue and concession revenue. These are based on passenger traffic. A landing fee is the fee charged to airlines for each aircraft that lands. Aeronautical revenue is related to cargo aircraft. Concession revenue reflects the leases and rent that various concessions within the airport pay. All are related to the amount of airport traffic, so that in a year when passenger counts increase, these revenues will increase (HIDOT, 2015).

Operating expenses include personnel services, maintenance, and utilities. These are generally self-explanatory -- the people who work at the airport, the cost of running the airport and the maintenance cost to keep it up. Non-operating revenue includes rental car customer facility charges, passenger facility charges and investment interest income. Rental cars are not considered to be concessions and their revenue is therefore is a distinct category. There is a fee for each passenger departing the airport, which is included in the price of a ticket but remitted back to the airport. The airports authority also holds some investments, usually short-term bonds, and this income is recorded here (HIDOT, 2015). Capital contributions are inflows made by different government bodies (HIDOT, 2015).

Chapter 6: HNL in the Community

Honolulu International Airport plays as much a symbolic role as a practical one. Since the 1920s, the airport has been serving the needs of locals. The first commuter inter-island flights began in 1929, with Inter-Island Airways -- which is now Hawaiian Airlines. In 1935, Honolulu rose to international stature as an airport hub that could connect Asia to North America. \"Early visionaries marketed Honolulu as the Crossroads of the Pacific, a status we have earned and treasured over the past eight decades,\" (Honolulu International Airport, 2016). By 1935, Honolulu International Airport was running commercial flights across the Pacific, the first of which was the 1935 inaugural trans-Pacific flight by Pan American World Airways. \"Honolulu International has been the Gateway between Asia and the Pacific and the Continental United States ever since,\" (Honolulu International Airport, 2016). Because so many trans-Pacific flights cross through Honolulu, the airport has become a tremendous boon to the Hawaiian economy.

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PaperDue. (2016). Airport introduction and chapter structure overview. PaperDue. https://www.paperdue.com/essay/analysis-of-honolulu-international-airport-essay-2167840

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