Route reliability record
HNL→SLC
Honolulu to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 856
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,994 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 856 HNL to SLC flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly HNL to SLC: a 5pm–8pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.0%, against 82.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 50 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 836 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.75%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.8% on time across 492 flights
These figures cover 856 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on HNL to SLC
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 492 | 83.8% | 72 min | 3.05% | B− |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 122 | 82.6% | 73 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 242 | 79.2% | 52 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on HNL to SLC
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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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 half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am68 flights75.0%
- 11am–2pm169 flights77.1%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm309 flights89.9%
- 8pm–5am310 flights79.3%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 89.9% on time. The full set of windows spans 15 points.
Explore
Filter HNL to SLC by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On HNL to SLC, the best departure window is 5pm–8pm at 89.9% on time and the worst is 8am–11am at 75.0%, a wide gap of 14.9 points. All US flights leaving 5pm–8pm ran 68.0%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am75.0%
- 11am–2pm77.1%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm89.9%
- 8pm–5am79.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 93.1% 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 91 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 75.8%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 59% of the 9,680 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 59%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,739 of the 9,680 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,680 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.75% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.58%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.4% 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 2,994 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 75.6% on time across 858 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 856 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SLC after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 856 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 82.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 836 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HNL to SLC questions
How often is HNL to SLC delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.7% of the 856 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is HNL to SLC compared with the rest of the country?
82.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 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 SLC?
The 5pm–8pm departure window is the strongest at 89.9% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 75.0%, 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 March delays on HNL to SLC?
March is the weakest month at 74.4% on time, compared with 93.1% in September. Across the year that is 19 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
- SLC to HNL — the return legseparate record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on HNL to SLC83.8%
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to SLC82.6%
- Alaska Airlines on HNL to SLC79.2%
- HNL to OGG, a related route84.1%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- HNL to LIH, a related route83.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.8%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record82.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record79.2%
- 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
Direction matters. HNL to SLC and SLC to HNL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.