Route reliability record
SEA→OGG
Seattle to Kahului
- Flights
- 1,809
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,639 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, about a point 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 roughly 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,809 SEA to OGG flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 365 at 87.7% on time.
Best time to fly SEA to OGG: a 2pm–5pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.5%, against 79.0% 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
79.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,783 completed flights
Avg delay
48 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.66%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
87.7% on time across 365 flights
These figures cover 1,809 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 SEA to OGG
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 87.7% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 76.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,260 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 365 | 87.7% | 41 min | 1.10% | A |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,260 | 76.9% | 47 min | 0.63% | B+ |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 184 | 76.4% | 63 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Delta leads Alaska by 11 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on SEA to OGG
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 Seattle to Kahului
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. SEA → OGGSeattle to Kahului | Delta Air Lines | 86.7% | 87.7% | 1.10% | 11am–2pm, Wed | DL 344 13:59 |
| 2. SEA → OGGSeattle to Kahului | Alaska Airlines | 76.4% | 76.9% | 0.63% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 15 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am729 flights78.4%
- 11am–2pm382 flights77.3%
- 2pm–5pm348 flights88.0%
- 5pm–8pm350 flights73.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 88.0% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 73.3%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 729 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
December is the weak month at 69.9% on time, against 89.3% in June. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. January was the busiest month here, with 155 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.5%. 9 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 52% of the 18,000 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.
- 52%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, 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 9,250 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 17,868 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.66%, 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 4.5% 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 2,639 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 79.3% on time across 1,809 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 1,809 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 OGG 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. June runs 89.3% on time and December 69.9%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,783 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SEA to OGG questions
How often is SEA to OGG 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 21.0% of the 1,809 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SEA to OGG?
Delta Air Lines leads at 87.7% on time across 365 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 76.9%, a gap of 11 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 SEA to OGG?
The 2pm–5pm departure window is the strongest at 88.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.3%, 15 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 December delays on SEA to OGG?
December is the weakest month at 69.9% on time, compared with 89.3% in June. Across the year that is 19 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
- OGG to SEA — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on SEA to OGG87.7%
- Alaska Airlines on SEA to OGG76.9%
- Hawaiian Airlines on SEA to OGG76.4%
- SEA to LAX, a related route83.4%
- HNL to OGG, a related route84.7%
- SEA to PHX, a related route79.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record87.7%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record76.9%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record76.4%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. SEA to OGG and OGG to SEA 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.