Gov. David Ige said Wednesday that preclearance flights from Japan to Hawaii are at least a year out, but the state is working to shorten that window.
Preclearance flights would allow Japanese visitors to undergo immigration and customs screening before flying to Hawaii and other U.S. destinations. The process would ease congestion at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, which has waits approaching 90 minutes at peak morning hours, and would allow Japanese travelers to fly directly to neighbor islands. Right now, Hawaii has international points of entry only at the Honolulu airport and the Kona International Airport.
Ige was in Japan from Saturday to Tuesday in part to advance preclearance flights, which have been in the works since 2015 when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that it was expanding the U.S. Custom and Border Protection’s preclearance program to include Tokyo’s Narita Airport. Kansai International Airport in Osaka, Japan, was added in 2016.
Ige called a news conference Wednesday to discuss his trip, which also included meetings with stakeholders of the Thirty Meter Telescope to provide updates on the project. In addition, Ige provided an update on his Feb. 5-11 trip to the National Governors Association’s winter meeting in Washington, D.C., where he discussed the coronavirus with the head of the Centers for Disease Control and other agencies.
Hawaii tourism officials have been advocating for preclearance programs for Japan for decades. About 1.5 million Japanese visitors came to Hawaii in 2019, spending about $2.2 billion a year, according to statistics from the Hawaii Tourism Authority.
“Preclearance flights in Japan would have a massive impact on the market,” said Eric Takahata, managing director of Hawaii Tourism Japan. “It would be fantastic. It would increase demand to travel to Hawaii and help spread visitors from Japan throughout the state.”
Takahata said encouraging neighbor island travel would help boost spending for the mature Japan market.
“If they haven’t visited a neighbor island before they would probably act more like first time visitors, who tend to spend more on activities and accommodations.
But the push to expand comes as the state is grappling with other issues that could throw off the Japan visitor market, including the coronavirus and the controversy over the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT).
Ige said part of his reason for traveling to Japan was to provide reassurance that travel to Hawaii is safe. He also ensured Japan’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technology that there would be peaceful and safe access to the TMT project site.
Takahata said TMT has not had a negative impact on tourism from Japan and so far neither has the coronavirus.
“The big stakeholders are reporting that their booking pace through June is actually up over the same period last year,” Takahata said.
Some small school groups from Japan have postponed their travel plans to Hawaii “because they don’t want to take their kids to the airport,” he said.
However, Hawaii travel sellers have said they expect some gains from groups that had planned to go to Asia and now want to rebook in Hawaii, Takahata said. Also, some pickup is expected from leisure travelers who extend their stays to about a week from the market’s average five-day, four-night trip.
Ige said he doesn’t think coronavirus “explicitly impacts” the quest for preclearance.
“Preclearance would still require the same review that they go through right now, but it would allow us to do it on the front end before they board the plane. And, would definitely help us with the bottleneck in the international arrival area.”
Ige said several steps must happen before the U.S. allows preclearance flights to come from Japan including: establishing sufficient demand and executing a bilateral treaty and a memorandum of understanding.
In the meantime, he said he wants to reassure Hawaii’s travel partners in Japan that “there are zero confirmed cases of (coronavirus) in the islands” and that the state is “prepared to contain any virus should it happen in our community.”
