Carrier route record
HASEA→HNL
Hawaiian Airlines · Seattle to Honolulu
- Flights
- 479
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 16%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Hawaiian Airlines.
Hawaiian on SEA to HNL draws a D. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is close to two hours behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 479 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 789 at 76.4% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Hawaiian on SEA to HNL runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 124 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
64.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 470 completed flights
Avg delay
100 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.88%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
66.2%
Every carrier on SEA to HNL, 2,927 flights
These figures cover 479 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Hawaiian against every carrier on SEA to HNL
Hawaiian flew 479 of the 2,927 flights on SEA to HNL, about 16% of it. Its 64.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 66.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 76.4% to Alaska at 61.7%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 76.4% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 61.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,659 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 789 | 76.4% | 53 min | 0.38% | B+ |
| Hawaiian Airlines (this page) | 479 | 64.9% | 100 min | 1.88% | D |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,659 | 61.7% | 68 min | 1.27% | D |
The spread between Delta and Alaska is 15 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 15 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When Hawaiian runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 19 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am42 flights58.5%
- 8am–11am113 flights71.3%
- 11am–2pm59 flights63.2%
- 2pm–5pm118 flights72.9%
- 5pm–8pm92 flights53.8%
- 8pm–5am55 flights60.0%
Scale runs 45% to 80%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.8% on time, against 72.9% for the 2pm–5pm slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 118 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Hawaiian on SEA to HNL through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025120 flights68.9%
- Oct–Dec 2025359 flights63.5%
Scale runs 55% to 75%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 64.9% on time across 479 flights.
Split by quarter, Hawaiian on SEA to HNL logged 120 flights in Jul–Sep 2025 and 359 flights in Oct–Dec 2025. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 64.9% annual figure is the one to use.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 74.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 54.7%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Hawaiian on SEA to HNL runs when it is late
The 165 late arrivals split 54 under half an hour, 58 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 53 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early110 flights23.4%
- Within 15 min195 flights41.5%
- 15–29 min late54 flights11.5%
- 30–59 min late58 flights12.3%
- 1–2 hours late25 flights5.3%
- 2+ hours late28 flights6.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 470 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 194 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 68 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 39 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at HNL.
The worst days
Worst days for Hawaiian on SEA to HNL
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 November 2025, 17 hours 41 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 20 November 2025 | 17 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 October 2025 | 16 hours 40 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 December 2025 | 12 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 November 2025 | 12 hours 3 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 September 2025 | 11 hours 3 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Hawaiian runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 85% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 85%Carrier
- 13%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 85%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 14,000 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 16,549 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.88% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
11.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 2,677 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 65.2% on time across 479 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 479 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 Hawaiian on SEA to HNL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 479 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 64.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 470 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to HNL, every carrier
- Hawaiian on HNL to SEA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on SEA to HNL76.4%
- Alaska Airlines on SEA to HNL61.7%
- Hawaiian Airlines network-wide record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.