Route reliability record
HNL→SEA
Honolulu to Seattle
- Flights
- 2,931
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,677 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,931 HNL to SEA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 789 at 88.7% on time.
Best time to fly HNL to SEA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.9% of the time and Friday flights 77.8%, against 74.9% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 88.7% on time across 789 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,897 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.09%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
88.7% on time across 789 flights
These figures cover 2,931 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 2 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 SEA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 88.7% of the time; Hawaiian Airlines manages 65.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 479 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 789 | 88.7% | 76 min | 1.01% | A |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,663 | 71.1% | 62 min | 1.26% | C |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 479 | 65.2% | 97 min | 0.63% | C+ |
The spread between Delta and Hawaiian is 24 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 24 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on HNL to SEA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Honolulu to Seattle
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 → SEAHonolulu to Seattle | Delta Air Lines | 87.8% | 88.7% | 1.01% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 440 22:40 |
| 2. HNL → SEAHonolulu to Seattle | Alaska Airlines | 70.2% | 71.1% | 1.26% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 3. HNL → SEAHonolulu to Seattle | Hawaiian Airlines | 64.8% | 65.2% | 0.63% | 8pm–5am, Sun | — |
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 24 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am262 flights83.9%
- 8am–11am290 flights68.3%
- 11am–2pm796 flights67.4%
- 2pm–5pm522 flights75.0%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am1,061 flights80.0%
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 67.4% on time against 83.9% 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 1,061 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter HNL to SEA 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 SEA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 83.9% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 67.4%, a wide gap of 16.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am83.9%
- 8–11am68.3%
- 11am–2pm67.4%
- 2–5pm75.0%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am80.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 12 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.
August is the worst month at 68.5% on time, 12 points below February, the best at 80.8%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. March was the busiest month here, with 259 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 77.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 73.1%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 56% of the 52,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 29,000 of the 52,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 52,036 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 83.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.09% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.07%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,677 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 66.2% on time across 2,927 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,931 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 SEA 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. February runs 80.8% on time and August 68.5%, a swing of 12 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,897 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HNL to SEA questions
How often is HNL to SEA delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 25.1% of the 2,931 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on HNL to SEA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 88.7% on time across 789 flights. Hawaiian Airlines is at the other end on 65.2%, a gap of 24 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 SEA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.9% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 67.4%, 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 August delays on HNL to SEA?
August is the weakest month at 68.5% on time, compared with 80.8% in February. Across the year that is 12 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
- SEA to HNL — the return legseparate record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on HNL to SEA88.7%
- Alaska Airlines on HNL to SEA71.1%
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to SEA65.2%
- HNL to OGG, a related route84.1%
- LAX to SEA, a related route85.0%
- HNL to LIH, a related route83.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record88.7%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record71.1%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record65.2%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. HNL to SEA and SEA 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.