Carrier route record

ASHNL→SAN

Alaska Airlines · Honolulu to San Diego

Flights: 551
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 31%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.

Alaska on HNL to SAN sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 551 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 729 at 84.4% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Alaska on HNL to SAN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 540 completed flights

Avg delay

43 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.63%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.8%

Every carrier on HNL to SAN, 1,765 flights

These figures cover 551 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

Alaska against every carrier on HNL to SAN

Alaska flew 551 of the 1,765 flights on HNL to SAN, about 31% of it. Its 75.4% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 84.4% to Hawaiian at 70.5%.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 84.4% of the time; Hawaiian Airlines manages 70.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 485 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on HNL to SAN
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Southwest Airlines	729	84.4%	37 min	0.14%	B+
Alaska Airlines (this page)	551	75.4%	43 min	1.63%	B
Hawaiian Airlines	485	70.5%	72 min	0.82%	C+

The spread between Southwest and Hawaiian 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

When Alaska runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 15 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am63 flights82.5%
8am–11am111 flights78.9%
11am–2pm182 flights67.6%
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am195 flights78.3%

Scale runs 60% to 90%. 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 67.6% on time against 82.5% for 5am–8am. 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 195 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Alaska on HNL to SAN through the year

Oct–Dec 202514 flights—
Jan–Mar 2026271 flights70.1%
Apr–Jun 2026266 flights81.2%

Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 75.4% on time across 551 flights.

Split by quarter, Alaska on HNL to SAN logged 14 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 271 flights in Jan–Mar 2026 and 266 flights in Apr–Jun 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 75.4% annual figure is the one to use.

Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 80.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.4%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 63% of the 5,765 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.

Carrier
63%
Late-arriving aircraft
15%
National Airspace System
15%
Extreme weather
7%
Security
0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 63%, 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 3,641 of the 5,765 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,765 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.63% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.36%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 2,614 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 69.1% on time across 552 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 551 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 Alaska on HNL to SAN

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 551 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 75.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 540 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures