Route reliability record
PHX→HNL
Phoenix to Honolulu
- Flights
- 1,317
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,917 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 4 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 1,317 PHX to HNL flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 365 at 82.0% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to HNL: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.5% of the time and Saturday flights 84.9%, against 81.4% 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
81.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,303 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.15%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
82.0% on time across 365 flights
These figures cover 1,317 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 PHX to HNL
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 184 | 85.9% | 147 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 82.0% | 37 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 181 | 81.7% | 59 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 587 | 79.6% | 78 min | 0.17% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 82.0%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on PHX 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 Phoenix to Honolulu
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHX → HNLPhoenix to Honolulu | Southwest Airlines | 82.0% | 82.0% | 0.00% | 8am–11am, Mon | — |
| 2. PHX → HNLPhoenix to Honolulu | American Airlines | 79.5% | 79.6% | 0.17% | 8am–11am, Tue | AA 693 11:40 |
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 14 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am161 flights80.7%
- 8am–11am795 flights83.5%
- 11am–2pm244 flights80.3%
- 2pm–5pm117 flights69.9%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 83.5% of the time, against 69.9% for the afternoon window. That is 14 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 795 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 32 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 88.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 78.9%. 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 66% of the 17,000 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.
- 66%Carrier
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 66%, 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 11,000 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 17,342 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.15%, 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
5.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,917 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 85.0% on time across 1,317 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,317 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in HNL after this flight
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 88.0% on time and April 56.3%, a swing of 32 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of April before you think about anything else. 1,303 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to HNL questions
How often is PHX 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 18.6% of the 1,317 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to HNL?
Southwest Airlines leads at 82.0% on time across 365 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 79.6%, a gap of 2 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 PHX to HNL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 83.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 69.9%, 14 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 PHX to HNL?
April is the weakest month at 56.3% on time, compared with 88.0% in September. Across the year that is 32 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 PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Hawaiian Airlines on PHX to HNL85.9%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to HNL82.0%
- Alaska Airlines on PHX to HNL81.7%
- American Airlines on PHX to HNL79.6%
- PHX to DEN, a related route77.2%
- OGG to HNL, a related route84.7%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.8%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record85.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record82.0%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record81.7%
- 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. PHX to HNL and HNL to PHX 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.