Darkness at the state’s largest airport has turned to daylight. Still for some…. “We’re coming up on 18 hours,” said Greg Schwann, visitor from Australia. “So another 10 hours before we get out of here, so it’s gonna be a 2 day stay in the airport,” said Alix Brown, visitor from Canada.

The waiting game continues. “Lots of lines basically, everyones waiting just to wait,” said Schwann. “Our flight was supposed to leave at 11:20 last night and we we’re just now leaving today,” said SueAnn Macura, visitor from Minneapolis. Everything got backlogged when power went out Friday night.

“Then the restaurants went black and sent us all out so we sat around in the dark till 11:30,” said Legare, visitor from Australia. Emergency generators brought some relief – not much. “We had in gate 24-25 there was some power lighting from a generator, the rest of the airport was dark,” said Brown.

But, the airport was still functioning. “Runway lights and air traffic control towers were still operational. Planes were landing. We had some delays in deplaning them because jet bridges weren’t working,” said Brennon Morioka, State Department of Transportation.

By the morning, delayed flights were slowly playing catch-up. “What will it be 12 hour delay, so hopefully we can get out today and make things work,” said Macura

Those arriving into Honolulu weren’t spared delays either. Many rental car companies had yet to get inventory back in from stuck travelers. “Early this morning when there were only two keys on that board, I never seen it like that ever,” said an Avis employee.

The only upside to all the airport chaos…being stuck in paradise. “We want to get home but we could be in Fargo, North Dakota where it’s freezing so we were fine,” said Macura.

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