Route reliability record
HNL→LGB
Honolulu to Long Beach
- Flights
- 730
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,569 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 35 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 730 HNL to LGB flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 48 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 726 completed flights
Avg delay
37 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.27%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
85.6% on time across 365 flights
These figures cover 730 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on HNL to LGB
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 85.6% | 33 min | 0.27% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 181 | 81.8% | 43 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 184 | 76.5% | 37 min | 0.54% | B+ |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Honolulu to Long Beach
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. 4 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 | 89.0% | 89.7% | 0.77% | 8pm–5am, Mon | — |
| 2. HNL → LAXHonolulu to Los Angeles | Delta Air Lines | 87.7% | 88.3% | 0.64% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 422 07:00 |
| 3. HNL → LAXHonolulu to Los Angeles | United Airlines | 87.0% | 87.4% | 0.47% | 8pm–5am, Thu | UA 1169 21:40 |
| 4. HNL → LGBHonolulu to Long Beach | Southwest Airlines | 85.4% | 85.6% | 0.27% | 11am–2pm, Mon | — |
| 5. HNL → LAXHonolulu to Los Angeles | American Airlines | 84.5% | 84.6% | 0.08% | 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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 730 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm730 flights82.4%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 75% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split this route's record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 82.4% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 32 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. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 84.6% on time and Saturday the weakest at 79.6%. 5 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 55% of the 4,696 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.
- 55%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 55%, 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 2,589 of the 4,696 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,696 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, below the national 1.81% 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 2,569 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 89.0% on time across 730 flights, 7 points above 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 730 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in LGB after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 730 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 82.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 726 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HNL to LGB questions
How often is HNL to LGB 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 17.6% of the 730 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 35 minutes on average.
How reliable is HNL to LGB compared with the rest of the country?
82.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
Does the departure time change the odds on HNL to LGB?
Not by much in this data. Every departure window falls within half a point of the others, so there is no hour worth rearranging a trip for. The overall rate of 82.4% is the figure to plan against.
How bad are March delays on HNL to LGB?
March is the weakest month at 62.9% on time, compared with 95.0% in September. Across the year that is 32 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
- LGB to HNL — the return legseparate record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on HNL to LGB85.6%
- Alaska Airlines on HNL to LGB81.8%
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to LGB76.5%
- HNL to OGG, a related route84.7%
- LAS to LGB, a related route77.7%
- HNL to LIH, a related route84.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record85.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record81.8%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record76.5%
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
Direction matters. HNL to LGB and LGB 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.