Route reliability record
HNL→OGG
Honolulu to Kahului
- Flights
- 9,998
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 101 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 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 40 minutes. That rests on 9,998 HNL to OGG flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 2,861 at 92.3% on time.
Best time to fly HNL to OGG: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.4%, against 84.1% for the route overall.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 92.3% on time across 2,861 flights.
Key figures
On time
84.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 9,882 completed flights
Avg delay
40 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.11%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
92.3% on time across 2,861 flights
These figures cover 9,998 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on HNL to OGG
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 92.3% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 78.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 4,650 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,861 | 92.3% | 45 min | 0.56% | A+ |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 2,487 | 85.8% | 37 min | 0.72% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 4,650 | 78.2% | 40 min | 1.66% | 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Honolulu to Kahului
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. HNL → OGGHonolulu to Kahului | Southwest Airlines | 91.8% | 92.3% | 0.56% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. HNL → OGGHonolulu to Kahului | Hawaiian Airlines | 85.2% | 85.8% | 0.72% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. HNL → OGGHonolulu to Kahului | Alaska Airlines | 76.9% | 78.2% | 1.66% | 5am–8am, 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 17 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,352 flights93.9%
- 8am–11am1,817 flights92.7%
- 11am–2pm2,150 flights79.1%
- 2pm–5pm2,362 flights77.1%
- 5pm–8pm1,596 flights83.1%
- 8pm–5am721 flights84.8%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.9% of the time, against 77.1% for the afternoon window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 2,362 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter HNL to OGG 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 OGG, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 77.1%, a wide gap of 16.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.9%
- 8–11am92.7%
- 11am–2pm79.1%
- 2–5pm77.1%
- 5–8pm83.1%
- 8pm–5am84.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 94.6% 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 897 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 78.5%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 52% of the 62,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 62,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 62,207 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 33,000 of the 62,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.11% against a national 1.89%, 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 2.5% 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 101 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 84.1% on time across 10,001 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 9,998 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 OGG 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 94.6% on time and March 77.6%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 9,882 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HNL to OGG questions
How often is HNL to OGG 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 15.9% of the 9,998 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 40 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on HNL to OGG?
Southwest Airlines leads at 92.3% on time across 2,861 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 78.2%, 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 OGG?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 77.1%, 17 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 OGG?
March is the weakest month at 77.6% on time, compared with 94.6% in September. Across the year that is 17 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
- OGG to HNL — the return legseparate record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Kahului Airport (OGG) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on HNL to OGG92.3%
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to OGG85.8%
- Alaska Airlines on HNL to OGG78.2%
- HNL to LIH, a related route83.7%
- LAX to OGG, a related route81.6%
- HNL to KOA, a related route85.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record92.3%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record85.8%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record78.2%
- Hawaii inter-island flights: how reliable is island hopping?
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. HNL to OGG and OGG 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.