Route reliability record
HNL→SMF
Honolulu to Sacramento
- Flights
- 730
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,462 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 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 730 HNL to SMF flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
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
77.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 726 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.14%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
85.1% on time across 365 flights
These figures cover 730 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
Which airline is most reliable on HNL to SMF
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 85.1% | 48 min | 0.27% | A+ |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 184 | 70.5% | 57 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 181 | 69.4% | 85 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
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 730 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm629 flights77.8%
- 2pm–5pm101 flights76.2%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 11am–2pm window is the strongest at 77.8% on time. The full set of windows spans 2 points.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 62.3%. August is the strongest month at 90.3%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 28 points. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 82.7% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.9%. 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 73% of the 10,000 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.
- 73%Carrier
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 73%, 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 7,588 of the 10,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 10,356 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.14%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.9% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,462 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 80.8% on time across 730 flights, 3 points above 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 730 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 SMF after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 730 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 77.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 726 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HNL to SMF questions
How often is HNL to SMF delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.5% of the 730 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is HNL to SMF compared with the rest of the country?
77.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on HNL to SMF?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 77.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 76.2%, 2 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 SMF?
March is the weakest month at 62.3% on time, compared with 90.3% in August. Across the year that is 28 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
- SMF to HNL — the return legseparate record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Sacramento International (SMF) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on HNL to SMF85.1%
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to SMF70.5%
- Alaska Airlines on HNL to SMF69.4%
- HNL to OGG, a related route84.7%
- LAX to SMF, a related route84.6%
- HNL to LIH, a related route84.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record85.1%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record70.5%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record69.4%
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
Direction matters. HNL to SMF and SMF 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.