Route reliability record
LAS→HNL
Las Vegas to Honolulu
- Flights
- 2,208
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,762 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrive 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 2,208 flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 902 at 85.6% on time.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 85.6% on time across 902 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,176 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.36%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
85.6% on time across 902 flights
These figures cover 2,208 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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
Which airline is most reliable on LAS to HNL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 85.6% of the time; Hawaiian Airlines manages 69.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 670 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 902 | 85.6% | 37 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 636 | 73.1% | 64 min | 1.10% | C |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 670 | 69.0% | 85 min | 0.15% | C+ |
The spread between Southwest and Hawaiian is 17 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 17 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 13 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am215 flights75.5%
- 8am–11am1,198 flights79.3%
- 11am–2pm64 flights74.6%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm366 flights67.3%
- 8pm–5am365 flights79.9%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 79.9% on time across 365 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 1,198 flights scheduled in it.
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.
Delays peak in April, when the on-time rate falls to 64.0%. February is the strongest month at 83.3%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 19 points. May was the busiest month here, with 206 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.1%. 10 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 71% of the 33,000 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.
- 71%Carrier
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 71%, 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 23,000 of the 33,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 32,847 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.36%, 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
5.2% 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 are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,762 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 80.9% on time across 2,203 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,208 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 83.3% on time and April 64.0%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of April before you think about anything else. 2,176 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAS to HNL questions
How often is LAS to HNL delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.1% of the 2,208 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LAS to HNL?
Southwest Airlines leads at 85.6% on time across 902 flights. Hawaiian Airlines is at the other end on 69.0%, a gap of 17 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 LAS to HNL?
The 8pm–5am departure window is the strongest at 79.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.3%, 13 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 April delays on LAS to HNL?
April is the weakest month at 64.0% on time, compared with 83.3% in February. 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
- HNL to LAS — the return legseparate record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on-time record85.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record73.1%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record69.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. LAS to HNL and HNL to LAS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.