Check Six: Honolulu International Airport – 55+ years ago

From the Kamaaian56 flickr photo site

From the Kamaaina 56 website | click on photograph to enlarge

This photograph to the Kamaaina56 Flickr site shows what a pilot would. see on approach to Honolulu International Airport’s runways 4L & 4R. The photograph is probably from the early 1960s. Back then, you could drive around the end of the runways to a back gate to Hickam AFB.

In 1977, the contraction of the 12,000 foot reef runway was completed at a cost of $81 million dollars. During the construction, the back gate was closed and runway 4R was extended. Runway 4L remains at its original length.

Barely seen is the old John Rodger terminal on the right of the two parallel runways. The terminal was abandoned when the new Honolulu International Airport – now known was the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport – was opened in the late 1960s. It is identified as one of the busiest airports in the United States, with traffic now exceeding 22 million passengers a year and rising.