Route reliability record
HNL→SFO
Honolulu to San Francisco
- Flights
- 2,424
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,398 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,424 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,398 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.95%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
85.7% on time across 1,742 flights
These figures cover 2,424 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 SFO
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,742 | 85.7% | 70 min | 0.52% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 359 | 69.8% | 54 min | 1.39% | C |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 323 | 67.0% | 53 min | 2.79% | C |
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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am259 flights88.8%
- 8am–11am312 flights94.2%
- 11am–2pm724 flights71.0%
- 2pm–5pm316 flights75.6%
- 5pm–8pm19 flights—
- 8pm–5am794 flights84.7%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. 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 71.0% on time against 94.2% for 8am–11am. 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 794 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
June is the worst month at 74.2% on time, 16 points below September, the best at 90.4%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 270 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.0%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 57% of the 29,000 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.
- 57%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 57%, 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 16,000 of the 29,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 28,511 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 94.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.95% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.1% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 2,398 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 runs 81.4% on time across 2,426 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,424 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: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 90.4% on time and June 74.2%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,398 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HNL to SFO questions
How often is HNL to SFO delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.1% of the 2,424 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is HNL to SFO compared with the rest of the country?
80.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on HNL to SFO?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 94.2% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 71.0%, 23 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 June delays on HNL to SFO?
June is the weakest month at 74.2% on time, compared with 90.4% in September. Across the year that is 16 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
- SFO to HNL — the return legseparate record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- United Airlines on-time record85.7%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record69.8%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record67.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. HNL to SFO and SFO 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.