Carrier route record

HAHNL→SFO

Hawaiian Airlines · Honolulu to San Francisco

Flights: 323
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 13%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Hawaiian Airlines.

Hawaiian on HNL to SFO draws a C. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 323 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Hawaiian on HNL to SFO runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 106 extra late arrivals.

On time

67.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 312 completed flights

Avg delay

53 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.79%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

80.9%

Every carrier on HNL to SFO, 2,424 flights

These figures cover 323 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

Hawaiian against every carrier on HNL to SFO

Hawaiian flew 323 of the 2,424 flights on HNL to SFO, about 13% of it. Its 67.0% on time is 14 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.7% to Hawaiian at 67.0%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on HNL to SFO
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 Airlines (this page)thin sample	323	67.0%	53 min	2.79%	C

Departure window

When Hawaiian runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 323 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am—
11am–2pm191 flights65.7%
2pm–5pm1 flights—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am131 flights68.5%

Scale runs 55% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is the strongest at 68.5% on time. The full set of windows spans 3 points.

Across the year

Hawaiian on HNL to SFO through the year

Jul–Sep 2025157 flights71.3%
Oct–Dec 2025166 flights62.6%

Scale runs 55% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 67.0% on time across 323 flights.

Split by quarter, Hawaiian on HNL to SFO logged 157 flights in Jul–Sep 2025 and 166 flights in Oct–Dec 2025. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 67.0% annual figure is the one to use.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 53.8%. 24 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Hawaiian runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 79% of the 5,493 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.

Carrier
79%
Late-arriving aircraft
19%
Security
2%
Extreme weather
1%
National Airspace System
0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 79%, 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 4,316 of the 5,493 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,493 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations run at 2.79%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.1% 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 roughly 55 minutes, 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 69.9% on time across 323 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. 323 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 Hawaiian on HNL to SFO

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 323 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 67.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 312 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures