Route reliability record
SJC→HNL
San Jose to Honolulu
- Flights
- 808
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,417 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 808 SJC to HNL flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly SJC to HNL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.4% of the time and Friday flights 88.7%, against 85.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 83 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 806 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.12%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
82.2% on time across 446 flights
These figures cover 808 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 SJC to HNL
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 180 | 91.1% | 58 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 182 | 89.6% | 86 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 446 | 82.2% | 49 min | 0.22% | B+ |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly San Jose to Honolulu
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SFO → HNLSan Francisco to Honolulu | United Airlines | 86.2% | 86.5% | 0.29% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1175 09:20 |
| 2. SJC → HNLSan Jose to Honolulu | Southwest Airlines | 82.0% | 82.2% | 0.22% | 5am–8am, Sun | — |
| 3. OAK → HNLOakland to Honolulu | Southwest Airlines | 78.1% | 78.1% | 0.00% | 2pm–5pm, Tue | WN 808 13:55 |
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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am340 flights91.4%
- 8am–11am315 flights89.5%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm126 flights75.2%
- 5pm–8pm27 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.4% of the time, against 75.2% for the afternoon window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 340 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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.
June is the worst month at 66.7% on time, 29 points below November, the best at 95.4%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Thursday the weakest at 81.4%. 7 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 55% of the 6,413 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.
- 55%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
37% 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 6,413 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 37 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 split is drawn from 6,413 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 55%, 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 3,509 of the 6,413 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.12%, 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 3.5% 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 2,417 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 83.5% on time across 809 flights, within 2 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. 808 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in HNL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 808 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 85.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 806 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SJC to HNL questions
How often is SJC to HNL delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.1% of the 808 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is SJC to HNL compared with the rest of the country?
85.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 8 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SJC to HNL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.4% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 75.2%, 16 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 June delays on SJC to HNL?
June is the weakest month at 66.7% on time, compared with 95.4% in November. Across the year that is 29 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 SJC — the return legseparate record
- Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International (SJC) delay statistics
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on SJC to HNL91.1%
- Hawaiian Airlines on SJC to HNL89.6%
- Southwest Airlines on SJC to HNL82.2%
- SJC to SAN, a related route72.4%
- OGG to HNL, a related route84.7%
- SJC to LAX, a related route86.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record91.1%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record89.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record82.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. SJC to HNL and HNL to SJC 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.