The original Hana Airport was a small grass field located at Hamoa.  It was served by Inter-Island Airways with 8-passenger amphibians from May 1935 to the start of World War II. 

Further developments brought the use of 16-passenger amphibians and 24-passenger land planes, which were too big to use the field.  Scheduled service was disctontinued and the entire Hana area fell victim to technological development and became dependent on the infrequent service of small unscheduled aircraft.

Although it is only approximately 55 miles from Kahului by road, it is a strenuous drive of 2 1/2 hours.  It was felt that the time involved in travelling on the highways, plus the increase in population and the growth of Hotel Hana-Maui justified scheduled airline operations into the area.

A new airport was therefore constructed and opened to scheduled traffic on November 11, 1950.  The land was owned in part by the Territory, the balance donated by Hana Ranch Co.

The Federal government, through the CAA, participated in the cost of developing the facilities.

As aircraft change, it will become necessary to lengthen the runway.

In 1955, the airport consisted of 125 acres of land, and had one paved runway, 8-26, which was 100-feet wide and 3,600-feet long.  The only scheduled service was by Hawaiian Airlines.  The airport has a passenger terminal building, a freight terminal building, taxiways, paved plane parking area, wind socks, field maintenance, Crash-Fire protection and ground transportation services.

Drinking water no longer needed to be trucked to Hana Airport as a water system was completed on March 19, 1963.