Carrier route record
ASSFO→HNL
Alaska Airlines · San Francisco to Honolulu
- Flights
- 482
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 19%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on SFO to HNL draws a C. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 482 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Alaska on SFO to HNL runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 102 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 468 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.90%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.0%
Every carrier on SFO to HNL, 2,477 flights
These figures cover 482 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
Alaska against every carrier on SFO to HNL
Alaska flew 482 of the 2,477 flights on SFO to HNL, about 19% of it. Its 67.1% on time is 13 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 84.5% to Alaska at 67.1%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,779 | 84.5% | 63 min | 0.11% | B+ |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 216 | 71.0% | 68 min | 3.70% | C− |
| Alaska Airlines (this page) | 482 | 67.1% | 57 min | 2.90% | C |
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Departure window
When Alaska runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 11 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am79 flights75.0%
- 8am–11am168 flights64.0%
- 11am–2pm20 flights—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm157 flights67.5%
- 8pm–5am58 flights68.4%
Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 75.0% of the time, against 64.0% for the morning window. That is 11 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 168 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Alaska on SFO to HNL through the year
Delays peak in April, when the on-time rate falls to 50.9%. June is the strongest month at 75.9%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 25 points. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 57.1%, a spread of 23 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Alaska on SFO to HNL runs when it is late
The 154 late arrivals split 75 under half an hour, 42 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 37 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early60 flights12.8%
- Within 15 min254 flights54.3%
- 15–29 min late75 flights16.0%
- 30–59 min late42 flights9.0%
- 1–2 hours late21 flights4.5%
- 2+ hours late16 flights3.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 468 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
31 of 104 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 30% of them. In the other direction, 81 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 Alaska on SFO to HNL
The latest arrival of the period was on 13 July 2026, 15 hours 29 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 13 July 2026 | 15 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 February 2026 | 4 hours 59 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 January 2026 | 4 hours 53 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 April 2026 | 4 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 August 2026 | 3 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Alaska runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 64% of the 8,829 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 64%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 16%Late-arriving aircraft
- 0%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 64%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,640 of the 8,829 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 8,829 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.90%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,398 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 69.8% on time across 480 flights, within 3 points 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. 482 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 Alaska on SFO to HNL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.90% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 468 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to HNL, every carrier
- Alaska on HNL to SFO, the return leg
- United Airlines on SFO to HNL84.5%
- Hawaiian Airlines on SFO to HNL71.0%
- Alaska Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.