Departure
94%
vs 95% ▼ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Hana Airport (PHHN) is a small, uncontrolled state airport on the remote east shore of Maui, serving the town of Hana with commuter air taxi and general aviation traffic. Its single lit asphalt runway sits close to the Pacific coastline in one of Hawaii's most isolated settings, making it a scenic but demanding VFR destination for simulator pilots. The field has operated at its present site since 1950, having grown out of an earlier grass strip nearby.
Hana Airport is a public-use aerodrome owned and operated by the Hawaii Department of Transportation, situated on the east shore of the island of Maui a few miles from the town of Hana. It functions primarily as a commuter and general aviation field, handling unscheduled air taxi flights and light aircraft rather than large scheduled airline traffic. For a simulator pilot the appeal lies in its dramatic coastal setting and its status as one of the more isolated and characterful airfields in the Hawaiian island chain, reachable only by a short flight or the famously winding Road to Hana.
The airport lies on the northeast side of Maui, about three nautical miles northwest of the unincorporated town of Hana, on a site covering roughly 119 to 144 acres depending on the survey cited. There is no control tower at the field, and air traffic in the surrounding airspace is coordinated through Honolulu Center. The location is remote relative to Maui's main airport at Kahului, separated from it by the rugged windward coastline and the Hana Highway.
Hana Airport has a single physical runway, 08/26, aligned along the coast. It is 3,593 feet long with a hard (asphalt) surface and is lit for night operations. There is no instrument landing system, and the field elevation is 62 feet above mean sea level.
Traffic at Hana is coordinated through Honolulu Center on 126 MHz, with a common traffic advisory frequency of 122.9 MHz. A remote communications outlet, Hana RCO, and the Hana RDO both operate on 122.3 MHz, which also serves as the Flight Service frequency; a Honolulu RDO facility is also listed. There is no control tower and no published instrument approach, so arriving pilots should expect to self-announce and operate under visual flight rules.
Hana has no air traffic control tower, so pilots operate under standard non-towered procedures, announcing intentions on the common traffic advisory frequency of 122.9 MHz. No specific circuit heights, noise abatement procedures or local joining instructions are published in available sources, so pilots should follow normal uncontrolled-airfield practice and remain alert for other traffic given the mix of air taxi and general aviation movements.
The airport sits on Maui's east shore roughly three nautical miles northwest of Hana town, with the Pacific coastline and the winding Hana Highway providing clear visual references on approach. The single runway and its lighting, together with the small terminal and support area south of the runway, are the principal ground features to identify the field amid the surrounding rainforest terrain.
The origins of air service to Hana trace back to 1935, when a small grass airfield operated at nearby Hamoa. To accommodate larger aircraft, a new airport was developed at the present site under Act 153 of the 1945 Session Laws of Hawaii, which appropriated funds matched by the Civil Aeronautics Administration for a total project cost of $300,000. Construction began on November 16, 1948, with contracts covering grading, fencing, and paving of the runway, taxiway and terminal area, and the airport officially opened on November 11, 1950. By 1955 the field had one paved runway, 8/26, 100 feet wide and 3,600 feet long, along with passenger and freight terminal buildings, taxiways, a paved parking apron, windsocks and crash-fire protection; Hawaiian Airlines provided the only scheduled service at that time. Over subsequent decades the airport was served by a succession of commuter carriers, including Island Pacific Air, Royal Hawaiian Airways, Air Hawaii, Princeville Airways and Aloha IslandAir, connecting Hana to Honolulu, Kahului and other Hawaiian points. Runway safety improvements were completed in 1986 at a cost of $500,000, and in 1999 Island Air and Pacific Wings introduced a code-sharing arrangement expanding service to Hana and Kalaupapa.
Hana Airport remains a basic general aviation facility within the FAA's National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems, supporting commuter, unscheduled air taxi and general aviation activity from a site south of the runway. It has a single paved and lit runway, 08/26, and no control tower. As of 2022 there were three aircraft based at the field, comprising two gliders and one ultralight, and annual operations have historically averaged around nine movements a day, split between air taxi and general aviation flying. Mokulele Airlines currently provides scheduled passenger service to Kahului. Future improvements under consideration by the Hawaii State Legislature include a parallel taxiway and widened access roads, though these had not been implemented as of the most recent published information.