Carrier route record
WNOAK→HNL
Southwest Airlines · Oakland to Honolulu
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 50%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on OAK to HNL lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 45 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on OAK to HNL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 365 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.4%
Every carrier on OAK to HNL, 729 flights
These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 OAK to HNL
Southwest flew 365 of the 729 flights on OAK to HNL, most of the route. Its 78.1% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 86.0% to Southwest at 78.1%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 365 | 78.1% | 44 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Southwest flight numbers on OAK to HNL
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 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–8am—
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 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
Southwest on OAK to HNL through the year
Delays peak in April, when the on-time rate falls to 53.3%. August is the strongest month at 93.5%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 40 points. January was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 73.1%. 8 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 45% of the 3,390 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.
- 45%Carrier
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
35% 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 3,390 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 35 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 3,390 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, 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 1,539 of the 3,390 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.0% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 88.2% on time across 365 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 365 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 OAK to HNL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 365 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 78.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 365 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- OAK to HNL, every carrier
- Southwest on HNL to OAK, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on OAK to HNL86.0%
- Hawaiian Airlines on OAK to HNL79.4%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Oakland International (OAK) delay statistics
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.