Airline on-time record

HA

Hawaiian Airlines

Flights: 26,175
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Airports: 9
US rank: #14 by volume

Hawaiian Airlines lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 26,175 flights, of which Kailua-Kona (KOA) flew 2,301 at 86.5% on time.

Kailua-Kona (KOA) is the most reliable of the nine airports covered here at 86.5% on time across 2,301 flights.

On time

80.8%

National average is 77.3%

Avg delay

57 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

0.87%

National rate is 1.89%

Largest base

HNL

10,807 departures, 81.4% on time

These figures cover 26,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.

Airport by airport

Where Hawaiian Airlines runs well, and where it does not

The choice of airport is not cosmetic here. Kailua-Kona (KOA) arrives on time 86.5% of the time; Seattle (SEA) manages 65.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 612 flights means less than a ten-point one.

Hawaiian Airlines on-time performance by departure airport
Airport	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
HNL · Honolulu	10,807	81.4%	52 min	0.85%	B+
OGG · Kahului	4,301	80.6%	44 min	0.70%	B+
LIH · Lihue	2,744	83.4%	41 min	0.84%	B+
KOA · Kailua-Kona	2,301	86.5%	45 min	0.87%	A+
ITO · Hilo	1,560	83.6%	36 min	0.32%	B+
LAX · Los Angeles	643	74.0%	87 min	1.24%	C
SEA · Seattle	612	65.8%	93 min	1.47%	C
LAS · Las Vegas	594	70.6%	101 min	0.34%	C+
SMF · Sacramento	367	79.9%	63 min	1.09%	B

The spread between KOA and SEA is 21 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 21 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

Route by route

Busiest Hawaiian Airlines routes

These are the 18 routes Hawaiian Airlines flies most often, each against its network-wide 80.8%. 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
OGG to HNL	2,487	84.1%	41 min	0.88%	B+
HNL to OGG	2,487	85.8%	37 min	0.72%	A+
HNL to LIH	1,977	86.2%	39 min	1.01%	A
LIH to HNL	1,977	84.2%	41 min	1.01%	B
HNL to KOA	1,760	86.7%	38 min	1.08%	A
KOA to HNL	1,760	85.2%	46 min	0.97%	A+
HNL to ITO	1,456	85.7%	33 min	0.34%	A+
ITO to HNL	1,455	83.2%	37 min	0.34%	B+
SEA to HNL	479	64.9%	100 min	1.88%	D
HNL to SEA	479	65.2%	97 min	0.63%	C+
LAS to HNL	472	69.0%	96 min	0.00%	C+
HNL to LAS	468	70.2%	65 min	0.21%	C+
HNL to LAX	400	64.0%	71 min	2.00%	D
LAX to HNL	399	66.6%	99 min	1.75%	C
LIH to OGG	366	86.3%	40 min	0.55%	A+
OGG to LIH	366	77.8%	35 min	0.00%	B+
KOA to OGG	366	91.5%	46 min	0.55%	A+
OGG to KOA	366	81.6%	40 min	0.27%	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 21 points between the best and worst airport.

5am–8am3,807 flights88.4%
8am–11am5,865 flights82.8%
11am–2pm5,885 flights79.9%
2pm–5pm4,641 flights76.4%
5pm–8pm3,633 flights79.8%
8pm–5am2,344 flights76.5%

Scale runs 70% to 95%.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.4% of the time, against 76.4% for the afternoon 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. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 5,885 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Hawaiian Airlines through the calendar

Hawaiian's year swings by 16 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.

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

December is the weak month at 72.0% on time, against 88.4% 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. December was the busiest month here, with 6,705 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 78.2%, a spread of 4 points.

Delay causes

What holds Hawaiian Airlines up

Carrier accounts for 63% of the 281,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Carrier
63%
Late-arriving aircraft
32%
Extreme weather
3%
National Airspace System
1%
Security
0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 63%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 178,000 of the 281,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 280,531 reported delay minutes.

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 88.4% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.87%, below the national 1.89% 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 4.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% 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.

26,175 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: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 88.4% on time and December 72.0%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 25,915 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

Hawaiian Airlines reliability questions

How often is Hawaiian Airlines delayed?

About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.2% of the 26,175 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.

Which airport does Hawaiian Airlines run best from?

Kailua-Kona (KOA) leads at 86.5% on time across 2,301 flights. Seattle (SEA) is at the other end on 65.8%, a gap of 21 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 88.4% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 76.4%, 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 72.0% on time, compared with 88.4% in September. Across the year that is 16 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures