Route reliability record
OAK→HNL
Oakland to Honolulu
- Flights
- 729
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,409 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 729 OAK to HNL flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly OAK to HNL: a 2pm–5pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.9%, against 80.4% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 723 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
78.1% on time across 365 flights
These figures cover 729 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 OAK 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 180 | 86.0% | 38 min | 1.11% | A |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 184 | 79.4% | 155 min | 2.17% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 78.1% | 44 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on OAK to HNL
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Oakland 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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SFO → HNLSan Francisco to Honolulu | United Airlines | 86.2% | 86.5% | 0.29% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1175 09:20 |
| 2. SJC → HNLSan Jose to Honolulu | Southwest Airlines | 82.0% | 82.2% | 0.22% | 5am–8am, Sun | — |
| 3. OAK → HNLOakland to Honolulu | Southwest Airlines | 78.1% | 78.1% | 0.00% | 2pm–5pm, Tue | WN 808 13:55 |
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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am150 flights81.2%
- 8am–11am215 flights83.8%
- 11am–2pm275 flights74.2%
- 2pm–5pm89 flights89.9%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 74.2% on time against 89.9% for 2pm–5pm. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 275 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 70.0%. August is the strongest month at 90.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 20 points. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 76.5%. 8 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 78% of the 10,000 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.
- 78%Carrier
- 13%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 78%, 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 7,872 of the 10,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 10,054 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, 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 4.0% 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 2,409 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 runs 82.1% on time across 729 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 729 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. 729 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 80.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 723 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
OAK to HNL questions
How often is OAK to HNL delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.6% of the 729 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is OAK to HNL compared with the rest of the country?
80.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on OAK to HNL?
The 2pm–5pm departure window is the strongest at 89.9% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 74.2%, 16 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 OAK to HNL?
April is the weakest month at 70.0% on time, compared with 90.0% in August. Across the year that is 20 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 OAK — the return legseparate record
- Oakland International (OAK) delay statistics
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on OAK to HNL86.0%
- Hawaiian Airlines on OAK to HNL79.4%
- Southwest Airlines on OAK to HNL78.1%
- OAK to LAS, a related route78.1%
- OGG to HNL, a related route84.7%
- OAK to SAN, a related route66.9%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record86.0%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record79.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.1%
- 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. OAK to HNL and HNL to OAK 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.