March 28, 2025 — Hawaiʻi’s longline fishers are facing record lows in profits, according to a recent report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
For years, NOAA’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center has collected data on fishing trip costs and earnings for Hawaiʻi’s commercial longline fishery, and surveyed 60 fishers to get data for 2022.
PIFSC found that the average fishing vessel made around $808,000 in gross revenue that year. Of that, 54% went to trip costs like fuel, ice and bait, and 22% went to labor. After other costs, boat owners took home an average of 5%.
Adjusted for inflation, that’s an average of about $44,000 in profit.
“If we look at profitability over time for the Hawaiʻi longline fishery using our past efforts, we find that, adjusted for inflation, average profit per vessel in 2022 was unfortunately at an all-time low,” said Justin Hospital, supervisory economist at PIFSC.