Route reliability record
HNL→LAX
Honolulu to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 5,540
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,556 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route lands a B+, 3 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 5,540 HNL to LAX flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 516 at 88.5% on time.
Best time to fly HNL to LAX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.8%, against 80.3% for the route overall.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the six carriers covered here at 88.5% on time across 516 flights.
Key figures
On time
80.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,504 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.58%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
88.5% on time across 516 flights
These figures cover 5,540 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on HNL to LAX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 88.5% of the time; Hawaiian Airlines manages 64.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 400 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 516 | 88.5% | 36 min | 0.58% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,095 | 87.8% | 67 min | 0.73% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 1,294 | 85.8% | 87 min | 0.54% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 1,182 | 82.2% | 135 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,053 | 65.5% | 49 min | 0.57% | C+ |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 400 | 64.0% | 71 min | 2.00% | D |
The spread between Southwest and Hawaiian is 25 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 25 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on HNL to LAX
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
- Delta 42713:5576.4% · 365 flights
- American 16215:1579.2% · 365 flights
- Delta 65821:3092.5% · 365 flights
- Delta 42207:0094.7% · 365 flights
- United 115713:0080.4% · 365 flights
- United 116921:4090.1% · 364 flights
- American 16407:0087.3% · 364 flights
- American 14420:3086.6% · 357 flights
- United 122107:0090.1% · 307 flights
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Honolulu to Los Angeles
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. HNL → LAXHonolulu to Los Angeles | Southwest Airlines | 88.0% | 88.5% | 0.58% | 8pm–5am, Mon | — |
| 2. HNL → LAXHonolulu to Los Angeles | Delta Air Lines | 87.2% | 87.8% | 0.73% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 422 07:00 |
| 3. HNL → LAXHonolulu to Los Angeles | United Airlines | 85.3% | 85.8% | 0.54% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 1169 21:40 |
| 4. HNL → LGBHonolulu to Long Beach | Southwest Airlines | 84.6% | 84.8% | 0.27% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 5. HNL → LAXHonolulu to Los Angeles | American Airlines | 82.2% | 82.2% | 0.00% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 164 07:00 |
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 18 points, against 25 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am699 flights90.3%
- 8am–11am485 flights79.7%
- 11am–2pm1,487 flights72.1%
- 2pm–5pm725 flights74.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am2,144 flights84.9%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 72.1% on time against 90.3% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 2,144 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter HNL to LAX 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 LAX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.3% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 72.1%, a wide gap of 18.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.3%
- 8–11am79.7%
- 11am–2pm72.1%
- 2–5pm74.4%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am84.9%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 90.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 603 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.5%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 58% of the 83,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 58%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 48,000 of the 83,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 82,773 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 90.3% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.58%, 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,556 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.2% on time across 5,540 flights, 4 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 5,540 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 LAX 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 90.4% on time and March 67.2%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 5,504 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HNL to LAX questions
How often is HNL to LAX 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 19.7% of the 5,540 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on HNL to LAX?
Southwest Airlines leads at 88.5% on time across 516 flights. Hawaiian Airlines is at the other end on 64.0%, a gap of 25 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 LAX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.3% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 72.1%, 18 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 LAX?
March is the weakest month at 67.2% on time, compared with 90.4% in September. Across the year that is 23 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
- LAX to HNL — the return legseparate record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on HNL to LAX88.5%
- Delta Air Lines on HNL to LAX87.8%
- United Airlines on HNL to LAX85.8%
- American Airlines on HNL to LAX82.2%
- Alaska Airlines on HNL to LAX65.5%
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to LAX64.0%
- HNL to OGG, a related route84.1%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- HNL to LIH, a related route83.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record88.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record87.8%
- United Airlines on-time record85.8%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. HNL to LAX and LAX 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.