‘My heart is so broken.’ Hawaii’s COVID rules turn NC couple’s vacation into nightmare
A south Charlotte couple is warning fellow fliers about COVID-19 travel restrictions after their dream Hawaii vacation ended as a nightmare before it began.
With negative COVID test results and COVID vaccination cards in hand, Melanie and DaJuan Savage boarded their nonstop, eight-hour American Airlines flight from Charlotte to Honolulu on June 3. A day later, they were headed back home after the Hawaii government quarantined them.
The Savages were excited to celebrate Melanie’s 50th birthday, their 15th wedding anniversary and DaJuan getting his N.C. and S.C. general contractor licenses.
“So we thought we were going to go over there and just live it up,” Melanie Savage told The Charlotte Observer in emails and interviews.
After they stood in line at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu for about two hours, the couple said, a government official told them Hawaii couldn’t accept their negative COVID results. The tests they’d gotten within the required 72 hours of their trip weren’t done through one of that state’s “trusted (travel) partners,” the official told them.
And Hawaii doesn’t accept proof of vaccination as a qualifier for admission for travelers, according to the state’s COVID-19 travel rules.
Melanie Savage said she then called Hawaii Gov. David Ige’s office, among others, to see why the state wouldn’t accept fliers who’d received a COVID vaccine “highly recommended” by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and President Joe Biden.
“The president don’t run Oahu Island,” she said the woman replied, referring to the island on which Honolulu, the state capital, is located.
Perhaps the most familiar Hawaii test partners to Carolinians and other travelers from the continental U.S. are Walgreens, CVS Health and Kaiser Permanente.
The couple got their COVID-19 tests through one of the nation’s largest health care systems, Charlotte-based Atrium Health.
“He said the test is not from our trusted sites, so we would have to be on quarantine for the duration of our time in our rooms,” Melanie Savage said of a Hawaii government official at the Honolulu airport.
“I instantly panicked, started crying ‘Please, my husband has worked so hard for us to get here,’” she said in an email to the Observer.
American Airlines ticket agent
What upsets the couple all the more: An American Airlines ticket agent at Charlotte Douglas International Airport asked to see their negative test results and wished them a nice flight, they said.
“It was the first thing he asked when we got to the ticket counter,” Melanie Savage said.
The airline could easily prevent such traveler horror stories by having its agents at the originating airport check passenger vaccination cards with the list of Hawaii’s trusted travel partners, she said.
The couple didn’t think Hawaii had such restrictions because nothing alerted them when they booked their flight, Melanie Savage said. The airline provides no visible link on its homepage to Hawaii’s list of travel restrictions, the Observer found. The Observer discovered the list by Googling “american airlines hawaii restrictions.”
Last Friday, an American Airlines customer relations employee told the couple in a letter that the airline rejected their request for a refund.
“It is not our practice to offer a refund on tickets where transportation was provided, and the tickets were fully used,” the employee wrote, according to a copy of the letter that DaJuan Savage forwarded to the Observer. “I apologize for any frustrations and disappointments this may cause however, I hope you do understand.”
On Wednesday, an American Airlines spokesman said American will offer the couple a travel credit for their trip.
“Our agents make every effort to ensure customers are aware of testing and quarantine requirements prior to departure,” according to a statement from the airline. “In this instance, our team should have verified that the Savages had a valid negative test approved by the State of Hawaii or advised them they would be required to quarantine.”
American Airlines officials also will contact the couple “to learn more about their experience,” according to the statement.
On its website and app, United Airlines launched a digital “Travel-Ready Center” in January where passengers will see COVID-19 entry requirements such as those in Hawaii. Fliers also can find local testing options and upload any required testing and vaccination records for domestic and international travel, all in one place,” according to an airline news release.
A Delta Air Lines spokesperson confirmed that all COVID regulations and requirements pop up on Delta.com for any domestic and international destinations that have them in place.
‘Third World country experience’
The Savages faced the prospect in Hawaii of quarantining for 10 days in a hotel room that DaJuan Savage found online but that turned out to have no blankets, two “ragged flat pillows” and a view only of another building, Melanie Savage said.
“It was hideous,” she said.
“This felt like a Third World country experience,” Melanie Savage said in her email. “Just numb. We felt like we were snatched out of existence. My heart is so broken that this is THE USA and we were treated so horrible.”
When they returned to the Charlotte airport, an American Airlines supervisor told them it was the first he’d heard of such an experience, she said.
The Savages also said they saw at least four other couples in the line at the Honolulu airport who also were ordered to quarantine because of negative COVID test results from a health care provider not on the “trusted travel partner” list.
The Transportation Security Administration’s national media affairs office in Washington referred the Observer to Hawaii state officials. Hawaii Gov. Ige’s office replied to questions by the Observer on Monday with a summary of the state’s travel restrictions, but didn’t answer why travelers with proof of negative COVID-19 results from such nationally recognized providers as Atrium Health are ordered quarantined within 10 minutes.
Hawaii’s COVID-19 travel data page, as of 8 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, showed 1,651 travelers have been quarantine out of a total of 37,846 travelers, including visitors and residents.
Douglas Carroll, a spokesman for the Hawai’i Emergency Management Agency, said in an email to the Observer:
“Especially during this time, people need to research the travel requirements of the destination they intend to visit. To stop infectious spread on an aircraft and to minimize the number of positives on our islands, our travel rules require that the traveler know that they are negative prior to boarding their last leg of flight to Hawaii to be exempt from the mandatory 10-day quarantine.”
On Tuesday, Hawaii began allowing residents fully vaccinated in the state to enter “without pre-travel testing/quarantine starting the 15th day after the completion of their vaccination,” Carroll said.
The vaccination record document must be uploaded onto the state’s Safe Travels site and printed out before departure, so the traveler “has a hard copy in hand when arriving in Hawaiʻi,” Carroll said.
“It is our goal to have this vaccine exception for all U.S. travelers flying transpacific from the U.S. in the near future,” he said.
NC TikTokkers, other travelers in bind
A quick Google search by the Observer showed other fliers from the continental U.S. being forced to quarantine in Hawaii despite valid negative COVID test results. Cases include a honeymoon couple from Orlando, Fla., ClickOrlando.com reported, and two recent East Carolina University grads, according to Insider.com.
A video posted on TikTok by one of the ECU grads, Sarah Blackwood of Raleigh, has drawn at least 1.2 million views.
A jet-lagged Blackwood told the Observer on Tuesday that she saw via Delta’s website that she and Abbey Campbell of Wilmington would need to provide negative COVID-19 test results.
Blackwood said she saw on the airline’s link to Hawaii’s Safe Travel page that a negative test was needed from a certified clinical laboratory. Blackwood, who works for a primary health care provider, said she simply missed the requirement that the results must come from one of Hawaii’s trusted travel partners.
She and Campbell booked their tickets months in advance and got a great deal, tickets totaling about $1,400, she said. Delta agents at the Raleigh-Durham and Atlanta airports never checked for their original negative test results, Blackwood said. The Delta spokesperson said the airline assumes travelers are following the COVID requirements of their destinations.
Blackwood said they then spent another $950 apiece to fly one way from Hawaii to the Los Angeles airport for negative COVID tests, as testing is available in that airport, she said, and about $550 apiece for the return flight.
She wondered why passengers weren’t allowed to simply get a test at a center across from the Honolulu airport.
But they loved their trip, including skydiving off northern Oahu Island, surfing in Maui and meeting so many friendly Hawaiians, Blackwood said.
Travel rules in Hawaii
On the “travel requirements” page of its Go Hawaii website, the Hawaiian Tourism Authority spells out Hawaii’s COVID-19 test mandate of travelers arriving on trans-Pacific flights.
Travelers “are subject to” Hawaii’s mandatory 10-day self-quarantine without a valid negative COVID-19 test by a company on the state’s “Trusted Testing and Travel Partners” list.
Passengers are asked for their results at security screening on arrival, according to the authority.
On June 7, Ige, Hawaii’s governor, said once Hawaii reaches a 70% vaccination rate, all restrictions will be lifted on travel, social gatherings and restaurant capacity.
As of Monday, 55% of Hawaii’s population was fully vaccinated and 61% partially vaccinated, according to the state’s COVID-19 Vaccination Chart.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the percentage of Hawaiians who’ve had at least one of two required vaccines at 68.4% , the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Tuesday.
“It’s challenging,” Carl Bonham, executive director of the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization told the newspaper of the discrepancy. “Obviously, because our policies are based on it, it would be nice to reconcile things.”
Summer travel packs planes
The Charlotte couple’s warning to fellow travelers is timely as families pack CLT airport and planes once again. That’s because of lower COVID-19 numbers and more people being vaccinated against the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, the Observer previously reported.
And American Airlines on Monday announced that its daily, nonstop flight from Charlotte to Honolulu has been extended through Jan. 3, three months more than initially planned, the Observer reported.
The flight debuted on May 6 as the first nonstop American flight to the Hawaiian capital from Charlotte, the airline’s second-largest hub. It was intended to operate seasonally through Sept. 7.
Melanie Savage, however, said the experience she and her husband endured means they won’t be flying the airline anytime soon.
She needs to fly to Grand Rapids, Mich., next week to attend her brother-in-law’s funeral in Kalamazoo, and American offers the cheapest flight, she said.
She’ll settle on Delta or Southwest instead, Melanie Savage said, although the couple is uncertain they can afford it.
This story was originally published June 16, 2021 at 12:49 PM with the headline "‘My heart is so broken.’ Hawaii’s COVID rules turn NC couple’s vacation into nightmare."