Airline on-time record

HA

Hawaiian Airlines

Flights: 422,188
Period: June 2025 to May 2026
Airports: 25
US rank: #19 by volume

Hawaiian Airlines earns a A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 11 points better than the national rate of 75.9%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 422,188 flights, of which Portland (PDX) flew 16,200 at 91.1% on time.

Portland (PDX) is the most reliable of the 25 airports covered here at 91.1% on time across 16,200 flights.

On time

86.7%

National average is 75.9%

Avg delay

43 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

0.54%

National rate is 2.23%

Largest base

LAS

38,324 departures, 88.3% on time

These figures cover 422,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. The median arrival is 6 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Airport by airport

Where Hawaiian Airlines runs well, and where it does not

The choice of airport is not cosmetic here. Portland (PDX) arrives on time 91.1% of the time; Boston (BOS) manages 80.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 14,552 flights means less than a ten-point one.

Hawaiian Airlines on-time performance by departure airport
Airport	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
LAS · Las Vegas	38,324	88.3%	42 min	0.64%	A+
SLC · Salt Lake City	23,311	89.4%	43 min	0.57%	A+
SFO · San Francisco	22,982	84.8%	43 min	0.38%	B+
DTW · Detroit	21,936	89.5%	41 min	0.47%	A+
EWR · Newark	21,662	80.7%	42 min	0.54%	B+
MSY · New Orleans	20,400	89.9%	39 min	0.30%	A+
BWI · Baltimore	17,975	87.6%	41 min	0.52%	A+
ATL · Atlanta	16,674	89.3%	41 min	0.46%	A+
PDX · Portland	16,200	91.1%	41 min	0.41%	A+
BOS · Boston	14,552	80.2%	48 min	0.54%	B+
MDW · Chicago	13,387	85.8%	38 min	0.66%	A+
JFK · New York	12,942	83.2%	43 min	0.58%	B+
DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	12,704	84.3%	47 min	0.77%	B+
PHX · Phoenix	12,522	89.5%	40 min	0.50%	A+
MIA · Miami	11,502	83.6%	46 min	0.52%	B+
PHL · Philadelphia	9,457	85.9%	44 min	0.36%	A+
SEA · Seattle	9,331	86.4%	43 min	0.85%	A+
MCI · Kansas City	8,930	85.0%	44 min	0.59%	A+
DEN · Denver	8,400	84.3%	41 min	0.81%	B+
LAX · Los Angeles	8,219	90.7%	37 min	0.57%	A+
LGA · New York	7,895	83.7%	44 min	0.38%	B+
MCO · Orlando	6,248	84.9%	38 min	0.42%	B+
FLL · Fort Lauderdale	5,768	83.8%	47 min	0.38%	B+
RDU · Raleigh	5,261	87.2%	43 min	0.44%	A+
HNL · Honolulu	4,982	90.0%	36 min	0.46%	A+

PDX leads BOS by 11 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker airport can outweigh it.

Route by route

Busiest Hawaiian Airlines routes

These are the 25 routes Hawaiian Airlines flies most often, each against its network-wide 86.7%. Route-level variation inside a single airline is routinely wider than the gap between two airlines nationally.

Busiest Hawaiian Airlines routes by flight volume
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
LAS to MIA	29,227	89.0%	39 min	0.67%	A+
DTW to DFW	21,018	89.8%	33 min	0.47%	A+
MSY to ATL	16,980	90.1%	36 min	0.22%	A+
SLC to MDW	14,481	88.4%	35 min	0.66%	A+
EWR to SLC	12,748	80.4%	47 min	0.48%	B+
BOS to DEN	10,817	79.8%	49 min	0.52%	B+
SFO to LGA	8,869	84.4%	42 min	0.24%	B+
ATL to BOS	8,062	93.5%	36 min	0.53%	A+
PDX to DEN	6,970	92.3%	40 min	0.32%	A+
MDW to PHX	6,932	88.6%	43 min	0.75%	A+
BWI to EWR	6,888	88.4%	44 min	0.62%	A+
LAX to AUS	6,757	91.2%	34 min	0.64%	A+
MCO to IAH	6,248	84.9%	41 min	0.42%	B+
DFW to MCO	5,879	84.8%	49 min	0.53%	B+
SEA to MSY	5,659	88.0%	41 min	0.92%	A+
DFW to BWI	5,617	83.6%	45 min	1.10%	B
LGA to MSP	4,941	83.5%	41 min	0.26%	B+
PHL to DEN	4,931	88.9%	46 min	0.22%	A+
JFK to FLL	4,831	82.5%	43 min	0.93%	B+
MCI to DEN	4,799	83.9%	53 min	0.63%	B+
ATL to MCO	4,329	85.8%	39 min	0.49%	A+
SFO to CLT	4,316	87.6%	43 min	0.14%	A+
BWI to RDU	4,283	88.6%	37 min	0.30%	A+
MIA to RDU	4,224	83.6%	41 min	0.57%	B+
EWR to LGA	4,200	79.8%	46 min	0.55%	B+

Departure window

The best time of day to fly Hawaiian Airlines

Departure time matters more here than the choice of airport. The gap between the best and worst window is 12 points, against 11 points between the best and worst airport. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am65,440 flights92.1%
8am–11am86,549 flights89.5%
11am–2pm78,101 flights86.6%
2pm–5pm73,875 flights84.0%
5pm–8pm75,998 flights79.7%
8pm–5am42,206 flights86.2%

Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.1% of the time, against 79.7% for the evening window. That is 12 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.

Across the year

Hawaiian Airlines through the calendar

Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 422,188 flights. The strip shows how much of Hawaiian's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, December worst

December is the weak month at 82.6% on time, against 90.2% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days.

The day of the week is close to irrelevant here: 3 points separates the best day from the worst. Weekly demand peaks are not what drives the delays on this operation.

Delay causes

What holds Hawaiian Airlines up

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 2.42 million reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
32%
Carrier
31%
National Airspace System
29%
Extreme weather
8%
Security
0%

The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 92.1% on time here.

No single cause dominates. late-arriving aircraft at 32%, carrier at 31% and national airspace system at 29% split the 2.42 million reported delay minutes between them. An even spread like this usually means the operation is running close to its designed capacity with no one obvious weak point, and it is the hardest pattern for a traveller to route around.

Cancellations are rare at 0.54%, below the national 2.23% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.7% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.6% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

422,188 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.

What to do with this

Booking Hawaiian Airlines

Put together: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 79.7% on time against 92.1% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 12 points is the largest single thing you control here. Portland (PDX) is the strongest operator if the fares are close.

Common questions

Hawaiian Airlines reliability questions

How often is Hawaiian Airlines delayed?

About one flight in eight arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.3% of the 422,188 flights in this analysis, against 24.1% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average.

Which airport does Hawaiian Airlines run best from?

Portland (PDX) leads at 91.1% on time across 16,200 flights. Boston (BOS) is at the other end on 80.2%, a gap of 11 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.

What time of day has the fewest delays on Hawaiian Airlines?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 79.7%, 12 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.

How bad are December delays on Hawaiian Airlines?

December is the weakest month at 82.6% on time, compared with 90.2% in September. Across the year that is 8 points between the best and worst months. The seasonal swing is modest enough that it should not decide when you travel.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures