Four Airlines Are Waiving Fees for Hurricane Nolo, Here's Exactly What Each One Covers

If you have a flight booked to or from Hawaii this weekend, Hurricane Nolo has already forced the cancellation of at least 21 flights at Hilo International Airport, and four major US airlines are letting affected passengers change their plans for free — but each one is running its own dates and rules, so check the one that actually applies to your ticket before you call.

What each airline’s Hurricane Nolo waiver actually covers

Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines, Southwest, American and Delta have all issued separate waivers, and none of them cover exactly the same routes or dates. Southwest is letting anyone booked to or from Hilo or Kona between September 25 and 27 rebook or fly standby within 14 days of their original date, on the same route, with no fare difference. Alaska and Hawaiian’s waiver applies to tickets bought on or before September 23 for travel originally scheduled between September 24 and 27, with rebooked travel allowed through September 30. American’s waiver covers Honolulu, Kahului, Kona and Līhu’e, and Delta’s covers Kona, Kahului and Honolulu — both networks are wider than Hilo alone because more of their Hawaii schedule routes through those hubs.

How strong is Hurricane Nolo, and will it hit the islands directly

Nolo is a Category 2 hurricane with sustained winds near 105 mph, and forecasters expect it to strengthen into a major Category 3 storm as it makes its closest pass to the Big Island this weekend. The current forecast keeps the center of the storm south of the main Hawaiian Islands, so a direct landfall is not expected — but that track still means widespread rainfall of 8 to 12 inches across the Big Island, with 15 to 30 inches likely on the island’s eastern side and isolated totals reported as high as 35 inches. That is enough for life-threatening flooding and mudslides even without the eye coming ashore.

Will travel insurance pay out for a storm that’s already making headlines

Not if you buy it now specifically for this storm. Once a storm has a name and is in the news, most travel insurance policies treat it as a “known event” and will not pay a claim you file for it after that point — the policy has to have been in force before Nolo existed as a named system. What a standing policy or a travel credit card usually does cover: a mandatory evacuation order, your accommodation being closed or destroyed, or a documented weather delay long enough to trigger the plan’s trip-delay benefit. Many travel credit cards include trip delay and trip cancellation cover automatically when the trip is charged to that card, and severe weather is typically a listed covered reason — check that benefit before assuming you have none.

What this actually means if you’re flying to Hawaii this week

• Check your specific airline’s own waiver page for exact eligibility — the terms above are current as of Sept 26 but shift as the storm track updates
• Don’t buy insurance today expecting it to cover Nolo itself — look at what you already hold, starting with your card’s travel benefits
• If you’re already on the Big Island, follow county emergency management guidance on flooding and mudslides, not just the airport departure board

If your flight touches Hilo or Kona this weekend, go to your airline’s own waiver page first, not a news summary of it — hurricanes move and waivers get extended. Nolo is a reminder that weather can ground a trip on any big journey, tropical or alpine: a delayed flight into Kathmandu before an Everest Base Camp trek runs on the same math as a delayed flight into Hilo, and the fix is the same one — buy real cover before the disruption exists, and build a spare day into the itinerary before the trek itself starts.

Cover photo: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). Section photos: GEORGE DESIPRIS via Pexels (Pexels licence); Josh Sorenson via Pexels (Pexels licence); Tom Fisk via Pexels (Pexels licence); Josh Withers via Pexels (Pexels licence).