Wasn't there a ferry transportation service that got canned due to environmental concerns? Seems hard to imagine planes doing better on that front.
Currently, the only way to travel between the islands is by actual airplanes, through airports, with all the annoyances that comes with that, TSA, security, bag checks, prohibited items, and a gazillion other rules. That's what this thing will compete against, and it's pretty much a slam dunk.
Unless it will be lobbied to death like the predecessors.
There were also a lot of environmental protests against the Superferry that I doubt can all be chalked up to car rental and airline lobbying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Superferry
If they're keeping TSA for intrastate flightd it's just as a fed funded voluntary jobs program for low IQ undereducated people to not have to rely on state welfare .
I have done an inter-island flight from smaller small prop plane terminal in Kona adjacent to the main (but still small) terminal and I'm guessing I didn't have a security screening in that case.
Also since its effectively float-able by design it has the potential to be very safe even if its propulsion breaks during the trip. you could just send another plane to take the passengers off then take the broken plane home pulled by a ship. This capability should be designed in.
The limited trip length might even lend itself to concepts that are fully or partially battery powered.
one downside is that the plane might not be able to be used in rougher weather.
To be clear, what I read about the ferry service being shut down made it sound like Hawaii has some dysfunction preventing good and normal things from happening, just sounds like this would be less feasible
This thing is electric and flies over the water. So it uses way less power per mile than if it was a boat in the water. And likewise because it flies in ground effect, it has an advantage over electrical planes as well. Hydrofoils might be close enough but still use more power and are probably also a lot slower.
The cost of the electricity is less of a concern here since electricity is cheap. The main efficiency related concern is the impact it has on range as batteries are expensive and heavy. Distances in Hawaii are not enormous but long enough that you'd have to worry about this. So, given that this thing has the needed range, it should be quite attractive as an alternative to planes. Cheaper and cleaner to operate (presumably) and quick enough that the difference doesn't matter. And a lot faster than ferries or hydrofoils.
It better be able to fly out of ground effect as well, or service would have to be suspended whenever the sea state doesn't allow it.
The fact that you could bring your car to another island was epic. These planes cannot do that.
Here's a contemporaneous report about the lava rocks from an independent journalist: http://www.islandbreath.org/2007Year/09-access&transport/070...
The rocks weren't the direct cause of the Superferry shutting down, but in my recollection they sure charted the course that way: people who might have seemed to some like they were just fighting change to fight change suddenly had irrefutable evidence to confirm their fears. There were of course other legal challenges that actually led to the shutdown, bankruptcy, and subsequent abandonment of the vessels. But at the time, on the neighbor islands, it sure crystalized the opposition.
> The Hawaii Superferry started service in 2007 but only lasted until 2009 after the state Supreme Court ruled that a law allowing it to operate without a second complete environmental study was unconstitutional.
A lot of the outer island folks loved it. I did. I lived on Maui at the time.