Carrier route record
WNHNL→PHX
Southwest Airlines · Honolulu to Phoenix
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 28%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on HNL to PHX earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 14 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 30 minutes. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Southwest's HNL to PHX record is 14 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 139 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
91.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 362 completed flights
Avg delay
28 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.27%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
83.3%
Every carrier on HNL to PHX, 1,317 flights
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 14 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
Southwest against every carrier on HNL to PHX
Southwest flew 365 of the 1,317 flights on HNL to PHX, about 28% of it. Its 91.2% on time is 8 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 83.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 91.2% to Hawaiian at 66.1%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 365 | 91.2% | 28 min | 0.27% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 587 | 84.6% | 123 min | 1.36% | B |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 243 | 77.0% | 56 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 122 | 66.1% | 39 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.
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
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 365 flights.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 91.2% on time across 365 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on HNL to PHX through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 100.0% 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 31 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 96.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 86.3%, a spread of 10 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on HNL to PHX runs when it is late
Southwest on HNL to PHX often beats the schedule: 172 of 362 completed flights, 48%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 24 of the 32 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 1 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early172 flights47.5%
- Within 15 min158 flights43.6%
- 15–29 min late24 flights6.6%
- 30–59 min late7 flights1.9%
- 1–2 hours late0 flights0.0%
- 2+ hours late1 flights0.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 362 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 25 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 13 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 20 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at PHX.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on HNL to PHX
The latest arrival of the period was on 9 April 2026, 2 hours 5 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 9 April 2026 | 2 hours 5 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 July 2026 | 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 March 2026 | 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 August 2026 | 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 March 2026 | 38 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 43% of the 909 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%National Airspace System
- 37%Carrier
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 340 of the 909 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 909 reported delay minutes.
43% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 395 minutes out of 909, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, 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 costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 0.3% 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 2,917 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 81.0% on time across 365 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 365 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.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on HNL to PHX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 365 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 91.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 362 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- HNL to PHX, every carrier
- Southwest on PHX to HNL, the return leg
- American Airlines on HNL to PHX84.6%
- Alaska Airlines on HNL to PHX77.0%
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to PHX66.1%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
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.