Carrier route record
WNLAX→HNL
Southwest Airlines · Los Angeles to Honolulu
- Flights
- 517
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 9%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on LAX to HNL lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 517 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,268 at 84.5% on time.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 84.5% on time across 1,268 flights.
Key figures
On time
81.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 516 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.19%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.9%
Every carrier on LAX to HNL, 5,459 flights
These figures cover 517 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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
Southwest against every carrier on LAX to HNL
Southwest flew 517 of the 5,459 flights on LAX to HNL, about 9% of it. Its 81.6% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 84.5% to Hawaiian at 63.2%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 84.5% of the time; Hawaiian Airlines manages 63.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 619 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,268 | 84.5% | 97 min | 0.39% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 517 | 81.6% | 51 min | 0.19% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,095 | 80.7% | 75 min | 0.37% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,183 | 76.7% | 57 min | 0.17% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 777 | 67.1% | 72 min | 0.90% | C+ |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 619 | 63.2% | 82 min | 1.29% | D |
The spread between United and Hawaiian is 21 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 21 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 38 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am338 flights93.5%
- 8am–11am27 flights—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm152 flights55.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.6% on time, against 93.5% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 338 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on LAX to HNL through the year
June is the worst month at 58.3% on time, 42 points below November, the best at 100.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 74.3%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 51% of the 4,830 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.
- 51%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
37% 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 4,830 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 37 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 4,830 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, 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 2,448 of the 4,830 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.19%, 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 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 last about 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,556 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 89.7% on time across 517 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 517 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 Southwest on LAX to HNL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 517 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 81.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 516 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to HNL, every carrier
- Southwest on HNL to LAX, the return leg
- United Airlines on LAX to HNL84.5%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to HNL80.7%
- American Airlines on LAX to HNL76.7%
- Alaska Airlines on LAX to HNL67.1%
- Hawaiian Airlines on LAX to HNL63.2%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.