Route reliability record
HNL→ITO
Honolulu to Hilo
- Flights
- 6,276
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 216 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 40 minutes on average. That rests on 6,276 HNL to ITO flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 1,822 at 89.0% on time.
Best time to fly HNL to ITO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.7%, against 83.6% for the route overall.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 89.0% on time across 1,822 flights.
Key figures
On time
83.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,183 completed flights
Avg delay
39 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.42%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
89.0% on time across 1,822 flights
These figures cover 6,276 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on HNL to ITO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 89.0% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 79.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,998 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,822 | 89.0% | 46 min | 0.82% | A+ |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 1,456 | 85.7% | 33 min | 0.34% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,998 | 79.3% | 39 min | 2.30% | B |
Southwest leads Alaska by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Honolulu to Hilo
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. HNL → ITOHonolulu to Hilo | Southwest Airlines | 88.3% | 89.0% | 0.82% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. HNL → ITOHonolulu to Hilo | Hawaiian Airlines | 85.4% | 85.7% | 0.34% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. HNL → ITOHonolulu to Hilo | Alaska Airlines | 77.5% | 79.3% | 2.30% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,133 flights93.6%
- 8am–11am1,150 flights91.3%
- 11am–2pm1,267 flights78.3%
- 2pm–5pm881 flights72.0%
- 5pm–8pm1,125 flights79.7%
- 8pm–5am720 flights85.6%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.6% of the time, against 72.0% for the afternoon window. That is 22 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 1,267 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter HNL to ITO by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On HNL to ITO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.6% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 72.0%, a wide gap of 21.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.6%
- 8–11am91.3%
- 11am–2pm78.3%
- 2–5pm72.0%
- 5–8pm79.7%
- 8pm–5am85.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 95.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. April was the busiest month here, with 548 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 79.5%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 48% of the 39,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Carrier
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. The split is drawn from 39,243 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 19,000 of the 39,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.42% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.06%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.5% 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.
At 216 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 82.6% on time across 6,272 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 6,276 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ITO after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 95.0% on time and March 78.2%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 6,183 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HNL to ITO questions
How often is HNL to ITO delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.4% of the 6,276 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 40 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on HNL to ITO?
Southwest Airlines leads at 89.0% on time across 1,822 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 79.3%, a gap of 10 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 HNL to ITO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 72.0%, 22 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 March delays on HNL to ITO?
March is the weakest month at 78.2% on time, compared with 95.0% in September. Across the year that is 17 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- ITO to HNL — the return legseparate record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on HNL to ITO89.0%
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to ITO85.7%
- Alaska Airlines on HNL to ITO79.3%
- HNL to OGG, a related route84.1%
- HNL to LIH, a related route83.7%
- HNL to KOA, a related route85.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record89.0%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record85.7%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record79.3%
- Hawaii inter-island flights: how reliable is island hopping?
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. HNL to ITO and ITO to HNL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.