Route reliability record
HNL→OAK
Honolulu to Oakland
- Flights
- 729
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,409 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 4 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 about 50 minutes on average. That rests on 729 HNL to OAK flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly HNL to OAK: a 8pm–5am departure, ideally on a Monday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.3% of the time and Monday flights 86.8%, against 81.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 727 completed flights
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.14%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
88.2% on time across 365 flights
These figures cover 729 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 OAK
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 | 88.2% | 53 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 242 | 74.2% | 48 min | 0.41% | C+ |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 122 | 73.8% | 49 min | 0.00% | C+ |
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 Oakland
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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. HNL → SJCHonolulu to San Jose | Southwest Airlines | 88.5% | 88.5% | 0.00% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 2. HNL → OAKHonolulu to Oakland | Southwest Airlines | 88.2% | 88.2% | 0.00% | 8pm–5am, Wed | — |
| 3. HNL → SFOHonolulu to San Francisco | United Airlines | 84.6% | 85.1% | 0.62% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 373 07:00 |
| 4. HNL → SFOHonolulu to San Francisco | Alaska Airlines | 68.3% | 69.8% | 2.08% | 8pm–5am, Tue | — |
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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1 flights—
- 8am–11am95 flights89.5%
- 11am–2pm508 flights77.5%
- 2pm–5pm36 flights80.6%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am89 flights93.3%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. 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 77.5% on time against 93.3% for 8pm–5am. 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 508 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter HNL to OAK 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 OAK, the best departure window is 8pm–5am at 93.3% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 77.5%, a wide gap of 15.8 points. All US flights leaving 8pm–5am ran 70.1%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am89.5%
- 11am–2pm77.5%
- 2–5pm80.6%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am93.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. 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.
December is the weak month at 71.0% on time, against 93.5% in July. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 86.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.0%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 54% of the 6,774 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 54%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,645 of the 6,774 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,774 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.14%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.1% 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 2,409 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 runs 79.6% on time across 729 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 729 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 OAK after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 729 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 81.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 727 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HNL to OAK questions
How often is HNL to OAK 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 18.8% of the 729 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is HNL to OAK compared with the rest of the country?
81.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on HNL to OAK?
The 8pm–5am departure window is the strongest at 93.3% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 77.5%, 16 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 December delays on HNL to OAK?
December is the weakest month at 71.0% on time, compared with 93.5% in July. 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
- OAK to HNL — the return legseparate record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Oakland International (OAK) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on HNL to OAK88.2%
- Alaska Airlines on HNL to OAK74.2%
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to OAK73.8%
- HNL to OGG, a related route84.1%
- SAN to OAK, a related route72.9%
- HNL to LIH, a related route83.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record88.2%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record74.2%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record73.8%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. HNL to OAK and OAK 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.