Carrier route record
DLHNL→SLC
Delta Air Lines · Honolulu to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 492
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 57%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on HNL to SLC lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 492 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Delta's HNL to SLC record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 54 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 481 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.83%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
82.6%
Every carrier on HNL to SLC, 856 flights
These figures cover 492 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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
Delta against every carrier on HNL to SLC
Delta flew 492 of the 856 flights on HNL to SLC, most of the route. Its 83.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 82.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Hawaiian at 85.2% to Alaska at 78.8%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 184 | 85.2% | 75 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 492 | 83.0% | 70 min | 1.83% | B |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 180 | 78.8% | 57 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on HNL to SLC
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 14 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–8am—
- 8am–11am68 flights75.0%
- 11am–2pm59 flights75.4%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm191 flights88.6%
- 8pm–5am174 flights82.5%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 88.6% on time. The full set of windows spans 14 points.
Across the year
Delta on HNL to SLC through the year
December is the weak month at 74.1% on time, against 96.8% in October. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 60 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 94.8% on time and Saturday the weakest at 73.0%. 22 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 47% of the 5,699 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
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
36% 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 5,699 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 36 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 5,699 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 2,684 of the 5,699 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.83% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.0% 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 a little over 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 runs 81.0% on time across 492 flights, within 2 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. 492 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 Delta on HNL to SLC
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 492 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 83.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 481 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- HNL to SLC, every carrier
- Delta on SLC to HNL, the return leg
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to SLC85.2%
- Alaska Airlines on HNL to SLC78.8%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.