Route reliability record
LGB→HNL
Long Beach to Honolulu
- Flights
- 730
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,569 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 11 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 50 minutes. That rests on 730 LGB to HNL flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 114 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
89.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 729 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.14%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
91.0% on time across 365 flights
These figures cover 730 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 LGB to HNL
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 | 91.0% | 57 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 184 | 87.4% | 52 min | 0.54% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 181 | 86.7% | 44 min | 0.00% | A+ |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Long Beach to Honolulu
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LGB → HNLLong Beach to Honolulu | Southwest Airlines | 91.0% | 91.0% | 0.00% | 5am–8am, Sun | — |
| 2. LAX → HNLLos Angeles to Honolulu | United Airlines | 84.2% | 84.5% | 0.39% | 8am–11am, Thu | UA 1158 09:05 |
| 3. LAX → HNLLos Angeles to Honolulu | Southwest Airlines | 81.4% | 81.6% | 0.19% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. LAX → HNLLos Angeles to Honolulu | Delta Air Lines | 80.4% | 80.7% | 0.37% | 8am–11am, Fri | DL 480 08:30 |
| 5. LAX → HNLLos Angeles to Honolulu | American Airlines | 76.6% | 76.7% | 0.17% | 8am–11am, Wed | AA 31 08:30 |
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 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–8am395 flights92.6%
- 8am–11am335 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 92.6% on time for the 5am–8am window against 84.8% for 8am–11am. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 395 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 73.3%. January is the strongest month at 98.4%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 25 points. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 91.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 85.6%. 6 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 84% of the 4,126 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.
- 84%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 1%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 84%, 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 3,456 of the 4,126 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,126 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 2,569 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 82.4% on time across 730 flights, 7 points below 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 7 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 HNL 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 89.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 729 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGB to HNL questions
How often is LGB to HNL delayed?
About one flight in nine arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 11.0% of the 730 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is LGB to HNL compared with the rest of the country?
89.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 11 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LGB to HNL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.6% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 84.8%, 8 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 LGB to HNL?
April is the weakest month at 73.3% on time, compared with 98.4% in January. Across the year that is 25 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 LGB — the return legseparate record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on LGB to HNL91.0%
- Hawaiian Airlines on LGB to HNL87.4%
- Alaska Airlines on LGB to HNL86.7%
- LGB to LAS, a related route81.3%
- OGG to HNL, a related route84.7%
- LGB to SMF, a related route87.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record91.0%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record87.4%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record86.7%
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
Direction matters. LGB to HNL and HNL to LGB 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.