Midway Flight Information

Your gateway to Midway Atoll is through the Honolulu International Airport.  Flights to and from Midway are currently offered on a Midway chartered Aloha Airlines 737.  Reservations are handled by Destination: PACIFIC as part of your Midway package. The flight path from Honolulu to Midway is over the northwestern Hawaiian Archipelago, some 1,250 nautical miles.  The aircraft passes near the islands of Kauai, Niihau, Nihoa, Necker, French Frigate Shoals, Gardner Pinnacles, Laysan, Lisianski, and Pearl and Hermes Reef.  The time en route varies, depending on the winds aloft, but is generally 2.5 to 3 hours on the Aloha 737 aircraft.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR RETURNING PASSENGERS: All passengers returning from Midway on the Aloha Airlines flights will deplane at the Honolulu Airport's International Terminal.  Upon clearing Customs and picking up their baggage, passengers can be picked up curbside on the 1st floor of the International Terminal in front of Customs.

Flight Schedules

We realize the following flight schedule, sometimes made up of late night departures and arrivals, is not always ideal. However, as a National Wildlife Refuge, Midway is, quite literally, "for the birds".  Year-round, flights in and out of Midway are scheduled to minimize impact on the wildlife.

At certain times of the year, bird flight activity is particularly heavy.  From April through June, the number of birds on Midway is at its peak.  Over a million adult albatross are actively flying between the sea and their nests on land during this time, feeding the more than 400,000 chicks that have hatched.  This is a critical feeding period, as the adults will begin to leave the atoll in June, heading out to sea until late fall when the next breeding season begins.  The chicks will remain on land, without the adults, for another four to six weeks as they prepare to fledge.  During that time, the chicks do not feed themselves--they survive solely on the nutritional supply already stored in their bodies from this heavy feeding period.

During times when there is unusually heavy daylight bird activity, the Aloha 737 will not fly in or out of Midway during daylight hours.  This schedule is for the safety of the birds, as well as humans.

The current Aloha flight schedule for 2002 is as follows:
Service to and from Midway is offered every Saturday from February thru September 2002.  For late December 2001 and January 2002 the flights are as follows: 12/29/01, 1/5/02, 1/19/02.  Dates for mid-week flights for 2002 have not all been set yet.   So far there is a flight scheduled for Wednesday, July 3, 2001.  As more flights are scheduled, the dates will be posted.

Departure and arrival times are as follows:

Departure times are subject to change.  We recommend you reconfirm your flight time on the morning of departure. 

Staying in Honolulu

As flights do arrive rather late returning from Midway, you may want to stay in a hotel in Honolulu if you have connecting flights out of Honolulu the following day.  There are several hotels right near the airport which provide free shuttle service to and from the airport.  If you need to make reservations for a hotel, please contact Destination: PACIFIC and we will be happy to take care of this for you as we do have special discount rates at the Honolulu Airport Hotel for Midway guests.  We also book interisland packages, Waikiki hotels, sportfishing trips throughout Hawaii, limousine service, and rental cars if you are planning to spend time in Hawaii before or after your Midway trip.