Although millions of tourists fly to Hawaiʻi each year, some visitors still choose smooth sailing over turbulent altitudes and ride the waves to Hawaiʻi's shores.
Cruise visitors have been a part of Hawaiʻi's tourism landscape for more than 150 years, and although the cruise industry is forecasting a strong year for 2026, that's only one part of what happens at Honolulu Harbor.
To learn more about ongoing developments at the harbor, HPR spoke with Dre Kalili, the deputy director of harbors at the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation.
Interview Highlights
On the ongoing construction around Honolulu Harbor
DRE KALILI: There's a lot of work that happens that benefits every user of our harbor, whether it's a cargo operation or a cruise ship and the passenger operations. And so constantly, year over year in every one of our ports, we are concerned about dredging to make sure that ships can come in safely, that the piers are in great condition, whether it's passengers walking over them or our longshoremen discharging cargo from the ships onto our cargo terminals. And so our job at the Department of Transportation is to make sure that we are maintaining our facilities in great working order, so that the private users of our ports can do all the things that they need to do to support our local economy.
On preparing for the upcoming hurricane season
KALILI: I think for us at the ports, it's critically important that we are in great communication with our users, and everyone knows the cues, right? We start watching when storms develop, and then when they cross that 140 degree line. We are grateful for our excellent partnership with the United States Coast Guard, and as those storms approach, we're working with them and in constant communication with their teams to make sure we're all clear on what conditions we should expect to see, and then if we need to plan for a port closure, and then we'll start to take the steps to do that.
And then once the storm passes, there's the protocols we follow to reopen our ports. But really, communication is everything as we plan for any number of heavy weather and storms. … We have a lot of longer term planning and other efforts and initiatives in place to make sure that our ports are incredibly resilient and we can bounce back from any disruption or impact from a storm or other type of event.
On cleaner energy ambitions for the cruise industry
KALILI: Last year we developed a plan about how, for across all modes in the Department of Transportation, we're going to aim to reduce our emissions and our carbon footprint. And for the ports we had considered, "OK, for crews, what does that look like?" Because there are some newer ships being built with different fuel types and fuels with fewer emissions, but we're not seeing those come here. And so we've been in an active discussion with the industry about what the solutions could be.
But I'll point out we got a grant from the EPA to do an emissions study of what is actually happening in our ports. And I think in a couple of weeks we'll be publishing our findings, and with that effort, we're going to be identifying some real strategies that can bring down the emissions — not just from cruise, but for cargo also. So, I am excited about what, you know, the next couple months are going to reveal in terms of data and a pathway to reduce those emissions.
This story aired on The Conversation on June 12, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
