Route reliability record
LIH→HNL
Lihue to Honolulu
- Flights
- 7,759
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 102 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 7,759 flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 1,770 at 94.8% on time.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 94.8% on time across 1,770 flights.
Key figures
On time
84.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 7,636 completed flights
Avg delay
46 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.56%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
94.8% on time across 1,770 flights
These figures cover 7,759 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 LIH to HNL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 94.8% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 76.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,932 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,770 | 94.8% | 69 min | 0.56% | A+ |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 3,057 | 85.0% | 41 min | 0.88% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,932 | 76.9% | 47 min | 2.86% | B |
The spread between Southwest and Alaska is 18 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 18 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 18 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,246 flights93.8%
- 8am–11am1,420 flights89.2%
- 11am–2pm1,412 flights82.7%
- 2pm–5pm1,693 flights75.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,349 flights83.0%
- 8pm–5am639 flights82.5%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.8% of the time, against 75.9% for the afternoon window. That is 18 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 1,693 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 90.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 698 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 80.1%. 7 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 56,000 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.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 6%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
62% 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 56,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 55,886 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 93.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.56% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.03%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.5% 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 102 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 84.9% on time across 7,755 flights, within half 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 7,759 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. September runs 90.8% on time and March 73.4%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 7,636 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LIH to HNL questions
How often is LIH to HNL delayed?
About one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.8% of the 7,759 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LIH to HNL?
Southwest Airlines leads at 94.8% on time across 1,770 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 76.9%, a gap of 18 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 LIH to HNL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 75.9%, 18 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 LIH to HNL?
March is the weakest month at 73.4% on time, compared with 90.8% in September. Across the year that is 17 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 LIH — the return legseparate record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on-time record94.8%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record85.0%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record76.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. LIH to HNL and HNL to LIH 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.