Route reliability record
HNL→SEA
Honolulu to Seattle
- Flights
- 2,942
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,677 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route 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 a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,942 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 789 at 89.6% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 89.6% on time across 789 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,913 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.92%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
89.6% on time across 789 flights
These figures cover 2,942 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
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 89.6% of the time; Hawaiian Airlines manages 66.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 727 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 789 | 89.6% | 88 min | 1.39% | A |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,426 | 71.9% | 62 min | 0.84% | C+ |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 727 | 66.0% | 81 min | 0.55% | 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.
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 15 points, against 24 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am202 flights83.1%
- 8am–11am376 flights72.2%
- 11am–2pm781 flights67.7%
- 2pm–5pm522 flights73.0%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am1,061 flights81.2%
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 67.7% on time against 83.1% 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.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 2,942 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
July is the worst month at 69.4% on time, 11 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.
The day of the week is close to irrelevant here: 4 points separates the best day from the worst. Weekly demand peaks are not what drives the delays on this operation.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 58% of the 51,000 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.
- 58%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 58%, 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 30,000 of the 51,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 51,237 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 83.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.92% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.07%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.0% 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 are the a little over an hour kind, 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 65.5% on time across 2,938 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.
The sample behind these figures is 2,942 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: take the 5am–8am departure, avoid July if the dates are flexible, and if two carriers are within a few dollars of each other, Delta is the one with the record behind it. None of that guarantees an on-time arrival; it moves the odds by 24 points, which is the most any booking decision can do. 2,913 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 arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.8% of the 2,942 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 89.6% on time across 789 flights. Hawaiian Airlines is at the other end on 66.0%, 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 83.1% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 67.7%, 15 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 July delays on HNL to SEA?
July is the weakest month at 69.4% on time, compared with 80.8% in February. Across the year that is 11 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-time record89.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record71.9%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record66.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Do budget airlines really get delayed more? The numbers
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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.