Route reliability record
OGG→HNL
Kahului to Honolulu
- Flights
- 10,290
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 101 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 77.4%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 10,290 flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 2,860 at 94.0% on time.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 94.0% on time across 2,860 flights.
Key figures
On time
84.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 10,169 completed flights
Avg delay
43 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.14%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Southwest
94.0% on time across 2,860 flights
These figures cover 10,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. The median arrival is 2 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 OGG to HNL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 94.0% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 73.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,984 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,860 | 94.0% | 52 min | 0.73% | A+ |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 4,446 | 85.8% | 39 min | 0.83% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,984 | 73.9% | 44 min | 1.98% | C |
The spread between Southwest and Alaska is 20 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 20 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 17 points, against 20 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,610 flights94.1%
- 8am–11am2,191 flights88.0%
- 11am–2pm2,028 flights83.7%
- 2pm–5pm1,984 flights77.6%
- 5pm–8pm1,978 flights83.3%
- 8pm–5am499 flights77.3%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.1% of the time, against 77.3% for the overnight window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.
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 March, when the on-time rate falls to 73.8%. August is the strongest month at 93.5%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 20 points.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 81.4%. 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 67,000 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.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% 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 67,000 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 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 94.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.14% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.04%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.6% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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 101 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 85.1% on time across 10,288 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 10,290 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. August runs 93.5% on time and March 73.8%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else.
Common questions
OGG to HNL questions
How often is OGG to HNL delayed?
About one flight in seven arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.3% of the 10,290 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on OGG to HNL?
Southwest Airlines leads at 94.0% on time across 2,860 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 73.9%, a gap of 20 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 OGG to HNL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 77.3%, 17 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 OGG to HNL?
March is the weakest month at 73.8% on time, compared with 93.5% 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 OGG — the return legseparate record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on-time record94.0%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record85.8%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record73.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. OGG to HNL and HNL to OGG 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, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.