Carrier route record
ASHNL→SEA
Alaska Airlines · Honolulu to Seattle
- Flights
- 1,426
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 48%
- 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 SEA sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,426 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 789 at 89.6% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Alaska on HNL to SEA runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 57 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,414 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.84%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.2%
Every carrier on HNL to SEA, 2,942 flights
These figures cover 1,426 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 SEA
Alaska flew 1,426 of the 2,942 flights on HNL to SEA, about 48% of it. Its 71.9% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 89.6% to Hawaiian at 66.0%.
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 (this page) | 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
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 22 points, against 24 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am119 flights83.9%
- 8am–11am217 flights79.8%
- 11am–2pm371 flights61.7%
- 2pm–5pm384 flights71.7%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am335 flights74.2%
Scale runs 55% 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 61.7% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 384 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Alaska on HNL to SEA through the year
July is the worst month at 61.7% on time, 17 points below February, the best at 78.3%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 186 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 75.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 69.8%. 5 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 47% of the 24,000 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.
- 47%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 24,402 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, 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 11,000 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.84%, below the national 1.81% 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
7.9% 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 about 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 62.7% on time across 1,422 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 1,426 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 Alaska on HNL to SEA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 78.3% on time and July 61.7%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,414 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- HNL to SEA, every carrier
- Alaska on SEA to HNL, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on HNL to SEA89.6%
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to SEA66.0%
- Alaska Airlines network-wide record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.