About 5,000 flights were canceled over the weekend nationwide as federal restrictions on flying came into effect.
Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu is on the list of 40 high-traffic airports targeted for reductions by the Federal Aviation Administration. It’s meant to deal with fatigue and staffing shortages among air traffic controllers, who have been working without pay due to the ongoing government shutdown.
There is still no word on whether Hawaiʻi will get an exemption for the flight restrictions, which are set to ramp up to 6% tomorrow. State Transportation Director Ed Sniffen said that he is trying to minimize the impact that fewer travelers will have on Hawaiʻi’s economy.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate has advanced a spending bill that would end the shutdown, with seven Democrats defecting. Hawaiʻi senators Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono both voted “no” on the measure. But no one knows how that may affect the proposed cuts.
The Conversation checked in with Keith Vieira about how he's making sense of the chaos. The former Starwood Hotels and Resorts executive now runs the tourism consulting firm KV & Associates. He was one of the founding board members of the original Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority before it was folded under the state Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism.
“Hawaiʻi has always been affected by uncertainty,” Vieira said. “It's a pure leisure destination, and people pay a lot of money to come here, so what they don't want to do is have risk of getting stuck in an airport, risk of having missed flights, the risk of maybe services where they're going not being what they'd like it to be. So when that happens, they're going to make a decision to either postpone coming to Hawaiʻi or booking somewhere else that they view safer, easier, maybe a staycation, or someplace they can drive to.”
Vieira told HPR that vacation cancellations and no state dollars towards marketing have created a level of economic uncertainty for Hawaiʻi. He hopes that DBEDT can focus on marketing again and proposes that 10% of the transient accommodations tax be used to fund that.
"The fact that there's $1 billion coming into the state for TAT and we don't get any of it for marketing is ridiculous, because every dollar we spend will return nine to 10 times that. So it's a good investment to help our economy," Vieira said. "We've got to get back to driving some business, because it's not like we're down 50% but we're down 15 to 20%. ... That 20% is where you make your money. So they're either losing money or making no money, but having to make significant cuts. So it doesn't feel good. We need to get behind driving visitor spending again, and I'm hopeful that the Legislature and the governor recognize it."
This story aired on The Conversation on Nov. 10, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this interview for the web.
