Carrier route record
ASHNL→SFO
Alaska Airlines · Honolulu to San Francisco
- Flights
- 480
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 19%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on HNL to SFO sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 480 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Alaska on HNL to SFO runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 75 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 470 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.08%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.8%
Every carrier on HNL to SFO, 2,476 flights
These figures cover 480 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Alaska against every carrier on HNL to SFO
Alaska flew 480 of the 2,476 flights on HNL to SFO, about 19% of it. Its 69.8% on time is 11 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.1% to Hawaiian at 69.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 | 1,779 | 85.1% | 64 min | 0.62% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines (this page) | 480 | 69.8% | 58 min | 2.08% | C |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 217 | 69.4% | 54 min | 4.15% | C− |
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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 11 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am20 flights—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm245 flights64.0%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am215 flights74.9%
Scale runs 55% to 80%. 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 64.0% on time against 74.9% for 8pm–5am. 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 245 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Alaska on HNL to SFO through the year
May is the best month on the calendar at 78.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 63.4%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Alaska on HNL to SFO runs when it is late
The 142 late arrivals split 66 under half an hour, 44 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 32 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early59 flights12.6%
- Within 15 min269 flights57.2%
- 15–29 min late66 flights14.0%
- 30–59 min late44 flights9.4%
- 1–2 hours late21 flights4.5%
- 2+ hours late11 flights2.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 470 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 156 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 48 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 34 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at SFO.
The worst days
Worst days for Alaska on HNL to SFO
The latest arrival of the period was on 31 July 2026, 10 hours 51 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 31 July 2026 | 10 hours 51 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 January 2026 | 10 hours 48 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 January 2026 | 9 hours 31 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 March 2026 | 3 hours 39 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 August 2026 | 3 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Alaska runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 58% of the 8,168 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 58%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,761 of the 8,168 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 8,168 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.08% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.8% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 67.1% on time across 482 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 480 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 SFO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 480 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 69.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 470 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- HNL to SFO, every carrier
- Alaska on SFO to HNL, the return leg
- United Airlines on HNL to SFO85.1%
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to SFO69.4%
- Alaska Airlines network-wide record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.