LIHU‘E — Immediately prior to the opening of the present Lihu‘e Airport in September 1949, there were four airports in operation on Kaua‘i. They were located at Barking Sands, Port Allen and Hanalei, and at Lihu‘e’s first airport site, an
LIHU‘E — Immediately prior to the opening of the present Lihu‘e Airport in September 1949, there were four airports in operation on Kaua‘i.
They were located at Barking Sands, Port Allen and Hanalei, and at Lihu‘e’s first airport site, an 1,800-foot airstrip situated just north of Hanama‘ulu Bay that would close with the opening of the new airport.
The Port Allen, Hanalei and Hanama‘ulu airstrips were too small to accommodate large passenger aircraft. And, the Barking Sands field, although long enough, was, like Port Allen and Hanalei, far from the center of Kaua‘i’s population. With the opening of Lihu‘e Airport, Kaua‘i at last possessed a large, modern, centralized airport.
Construction of Lihu‘e Airport had commenced less than a year earlier, in November 1948, on a 250-acre site purchased from Lihu‘e Plantation that had long been planted in sugarcane.
The first plane landed at the new airport on Sept. 1, 1949, carrying Civil Aeronautics Administration inspectors.
Four months later, on the morning of Sunday, Jan. 8, 1950, the day the airport was to officially open, the biggest rain storm in East Kaua‘i in many years prevented two planes carrying special guests from Honolulu from landing and caused the cancellation of formal opening-day ceremonies.
But by afternoon, the weather cleared, and the first commercial passengers arrived at Lihu‘e from Honolulu at 2:55 p.m. aboard a nonscheduled Trans-Pacific Airlines aircraft.
Although the airport had officially opened, taxiways and parking areas for planes and automobiles still needed to be paved. Ahukini Road had not yet been rerouted, a freight terminal hadn’t been built, and landscaping around the new airport terminal was absent.
John Batchelder, who’d served as an Army Air Corps bomber pilot during World War II, became Lihu‘e Airport’s first manager.
In May, 1984, the current large Lihu‘e Airport terminal replaced the much smaller terminal completed in 1949.
