Hurricane Lala's Aftermath in Hawaii: What Travelers Do Now

If you have a Hawaii trip departing in the next day or two, you are flying into a state that is still cleaning up, not one that is fully back to normal. Lala strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane with 70 mph winds before weakening to a tropical storm as it made its closest approach to the Big Island early Sunday, August 16, its eyewall grazing the island's south side while the storm's center passed roughly 75 miles southwest of Honolulu. By the time it pulled away Sunday, sustained winds had eased to around 65 mph, but the system is still dragging heavy rain and rough surf across the state as it moves off to the west. The travel disruption was real and widespread. The Hawaii Department of Transportation closed Hilo International Airport (ITO) Saturday morning and Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport (KOA) Saturday afternoon, with staff sheltering in place through the worst of it. Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines, now operating as one integrated carrier, canceled 112 Neighbor Island flights and 31 transpacific flights over the weekend, including 48 island hops and 11 mainland routes scrapped for Saturday alone. Southwest issued its own advisory covering all five state airports, ITO, HNL, OGG, KOA and LIH, warning of delays and cancellations from Friday through Sunday. Honolulu's airport kept most of its schedule running, but Kona, Hilo, Kahului and Lihue all saw reduced service through the weekend. Cruise passengers felt it too. Norwegian's Pride of America cut short a stop in Nawiliwili and sailed early for Honolulu on August 13 to beat the storm's arrival, staying in port there and eventually completing disembarkation on August 16, two days later than planned; anyone booked on the ship's next sailing should confirm directly with Norwegian rather than assume the schedule reset cleanly. The larger Norwegian Spirit, midway through a 16-night Vancouver-to-Hawaii voyage, skipped its Hilo and Kona port calls entirely and arrived early in Honolulu, where roughly 200 passengers chose to disembark ahead of the original end date. Norwegian has been offering onboard credit for the missed ports plus refunds or future cruise credit for affected guests. The storm has not simply switched off. As of this morning, the National Weather Service is still warning of another 4 to 6 inches of rain statewide through Monday, with isolated spots on the Big Island and Kauai possibly seeing up to 8 inches, and flash flood warnings remain active for Oahu, where rain rates have topped an inch an hour. More than 217,000 utility customers were without power as of Sunday, concentrated on the Big Island and Oahu, and wind gusts near 45 mph were still being recorded in Honolulu. That combination, standing water on roads and a stressed power grid, matters as much for getting to your hotel as the flight itself does. So what should you actually do? If you are flying to or from any Hawaii airport today or tomorrow, check your specific flight's status in the airline app before you leave for the airport rather than trusting the printed schedule; Hawaiian, Alaska and Southwest have all been adjusting Neighbor Island frequencies day by day as ground crews and runways recover. Hawaiian and Alaska's waiver lets anyone with travel booked through Monday change or cancel without a fee, so use it if your itinerary lands on the Big Island or Kauai, where recovery is furthest behind Oahu. If you are booked on a Hawaii cruise sailing in the next week, call your cruise line or travel agent directly instead of assuming the itinerary is unaffected; both Norwegian ships involved needed schedule changes that rippled into the following sailing dates. If you are arriving to a hotel on the Big Island specifically, call ahead to confirm the property has power and is accepting guests before you land, given the scale of the outages there. Looking further out, this is also a useful prompt if you have Hawaii travel planned later this hurricane season, which officially runs through November. Lala is the second system to disrupt inter-island cruising this month after Norwegian Spirit's earlier port skips, and it is a reasonable moment to add a travel insurance policy with weather-related cancellation coverage to any late-season Hawaii booking, rather than relying solely on airline goodwill waivers that only appear once a storm is already bearing down. Sources Hawaii Island airports closed, flights canceled as Hurricane Lala passes south - Hawaii News Now - https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2026/08/16/hawaii-island-airports-closed-flights-canceled-hurricane-lala-passes-south/ Dozens of flights canceled Saturday as Tropical Storm Lala approaches - Hawaii News Now - https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2026/08/15/dozens-flights-canceled-saturday-tropical-storm-lala-approaches/ Updates on Tropical Storm Lala - Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and Horizon Air - https://news.alaskaair.com/on-the-record/updates-on-tropical-storm-lala/ Lala weakens to tropical storm, brings heavy rain, wind, flooding to Hawaii - ABC News - https://abcnews.com/US/tropical-storm-lala-forecast-impact-hawaiian-islands-weekend/story?id=135610026 Norwegian Cruise Line Sees Hundreds Of Passengers Voluntarily Deboard Over Tropical Storm Lala Diversion - The Travel - https://www.thetravel.com/norwegian-cruise-line-sees-hundreds-of-passengers-voluntarily-deboard-over-tropical-storm-lala-diversion/ Pride Of America Cruise Ship Rushes to Honolulu to Hunker Down During Storm - Cruise Hive - https://www.cruisehive.com/pride-of-america-cruise-ship-rushes-to-honolulu-to-hunker-down-during-storm/215091 Tropical Storm Lala Disrupts Pride Of America Turnaround In Honolulu - Cruise Addicts - https://cruiseaddicts.com/pride-of-america-lala-hawaii-cruise/