Route reliability record
HNL→KOA
Honolulu to Kailua-Kona
- Flights
- 7,317
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 163 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route 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 9 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 40 minutes. That rests on 7,317 flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 1,769 at 90.9% on time.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 90.9% on time across 1,769 flights.
Key figures
On time
86.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 7,233 completed flights
Avg delay
39 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.09%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Southwest
90.9% on time across 1,769 flights
These figures cover 7,317 flights between June 2025 and May 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on HNL to KOA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 90.9% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 80.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,341 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,769 | 90.9% | 46 min | 0.96% | A+ |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 3,207 | 87.6% | 36 min | 0.62% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,341 | 80.7% | 40 min | 1.84% | B |
Southwest leads Alaska by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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 20 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,256 flights94.6%
- 8am–11am1,596 flights92.9%
- 11am–2pm1,294 flights79.4%
- 2pm–5pm957 flights74.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,496 flights84.2%
- 8pm–5am718 flights88.4%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.6% of the time, against 74.9% for the afternoon window. That is 20 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
When delays peak on this route
This route'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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 94.9% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 89.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 82.2%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 52% of the 39,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 52%Carrier
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 20,000 of the 39,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.09% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.05%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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 163 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 85.3% on time across 7,319 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 7,317 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.
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 94.9% on time and March 78.6%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else.
Common questions
HNL to KOA questions
How often is HNL to KOA delayed?
About one flight in seven arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.8% of the 7,317 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 40 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on HNL to KOA?
Southwest Airlines leads at 90.9% on time across 1,769 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 80.7%, 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 KOA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 74.9%, 20 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 KOA?
March is the weakest month at 78.6% on time, compared with 94.9% 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.
Related
Where to go next
- KOA to HNL — the return legseparate record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on-time record90.9%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record87.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record80.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. HNL to KOA and KOA to HNL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.