Route reliability record
ITO→HNL
Hilo to Honolulu
- Flights
- 6,272
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 216 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 roughly 45 minutes on average. That rests on 6,272 ITO to HNL flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 1,822 at 94.1% on time.
Best time to fly ITO to HNL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.5%, against 82.6% for the route overall.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 94.1% on time across 1,822 flights.
Key figures
On time
82.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,180 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.45%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
94.1% on time across 1,822 flights
These figures cover 6,272 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
Which airline is most reliable on ITO to HNL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 94.1% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 75.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,995 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,822 | 94.1% | 61 min | 0.99% | A+ |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 1,455 | 83.2% | 37 min | 0.34% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,995 | 75.1% | 43 min | 2.27% | B |
The spread between Southwest and Alaska is 19 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 19 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Hilo to Honolulu
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ITO → HNLHilo to Honolulu | Southwest Airlines | 93.2% | 94.1% | 0.99% | 5am–8am, Mon | — |
| 2. ITO → HNLHilo to Honolulu | Hawaiian Airlines | 82.9% | 83.2% | 0.34% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. ITO → HNLHilo to Honolulu | Alaska Airlines | 73.4% | 75.1% | 2.27% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 19 points, against 19 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,070 flights94.6%
- 8am–11am855 flights89.8%
- 11am–2pm1,169 flights83.1%
- 2pm–5pm1,398 flights75.5%
- 5pm–8pm1,389 flights76.2%
- 8pm–5am391 flights79.8%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.6% of the time, against 75.5% for the afternoon window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,398 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ITO to HNL 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 ITO to HNL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.6% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 75.5%, a wide gap of 19.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.6%
- 8–11am89.8%
- 11am–2pm83.1%
- 2–5pm75.5%
- 5–8pm76.2%
- 8pm–5am79.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 94.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. April was the busiest month here, with 546 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.8%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 65% of the 47,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 65%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
65% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 47,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 to one. The split is drawn from 46,799 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 94.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.45% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.02%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.3% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 216 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 83.6% on time across 6,276 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 6,272 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in HNL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 94.5% on time and March 76.6%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 6,180 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ITO to HNL questions
How often is ITO to HNL 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 17.4% of the 6,272 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ITO to HNL?
Southwest Airlines leads at 94.1% on time across 1,822 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 75.1%, a gap of 19 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ITO to HNL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 75.5%, 19 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 ITO to HNL?
March is the weakest month at 76.6% on time, compared with 94.5% in September. Across the year that is 18 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
- HNL to ITO — the return legseparate record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on ITO to HNL94.1%
- Hawaiian Airlines on ITO to HNL83.2%
- Alaska Airlines on ITO to HNL75.1%
- OGG to HNL, a related route84.1%
- LIH to HNL, a related route84.1%
- KOA to HNL, a related route83.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record94.1%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record83.2%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record75.1%
- Hawaii inter-island flights: how reliable is island hopping?
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. ITO to HNL and HNL to ITO 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.