Route reliability record
HNL→LIH
Honolulu to Lihue
- Flights
- 7,755
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 102 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 40 minutes. That rests on 7,755 flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 1,770 at 91.8% on time.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 91.8% on time across 1,770 flights.
Key figures
On time
84.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 7,641 completed flights
Avg delay
41 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.39%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
91.8% on time across 1,770 flights
These figures cover 7,755 flights between July 2025 and June 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 LIH
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 91.8% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 77.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,929 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,770 | 91.8% | 56 min | 0.45% | A+ |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 3,056 | 87.6% | 38 min | 0.85% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,929 | 77.7% | 40 min | 2.53% | B |
The spread between Southwest and Alaska is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,285 flights94.0%
- 8am–11am1,502 flights91.3%
- 11am–2pm1,429 flights78.0%
- 2pm–5pm1,207 flights74.1%
- 5pm–8pm1,510 flights83.7%
- 8pm–5am822 flights88.5%
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 94.0% of the time, against 74.1% 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. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 1,510 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 75.2%. August is the strongest month at 93.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 18 points. July was the busiest month here, with 697 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 79.9%. 9 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 48% of the 48,000 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.
- 48%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%Extreme weather
- 6%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
38% 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 48,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 split is drawn from 47,541 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, 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 23,000 of the 48,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.39% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.8% 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 102 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 84.2% on time across 7,759 flights, within half 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 7,755 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. August runs 93.2% on time and March 75.2%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 7,641 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HNL to LIH questions
How often is HNL to LIH 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 15.1% of the 7,755 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 40 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on HNL to LIH?
Southwest Airlines leads at 91.8% on time across 1,770 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 77.7%, a gap of 14 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 LIH?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.0% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 74.1%, 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 LIH?
March is the weakest month at 75.2% on time, compared with 93.2% in August. Across the year that is 18 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
- LIH to HNL — the return legseparate record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on-time record91.8%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record87.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record77.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. HNL to LIH and LIH 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.