Carrier route record

WNSJC→HNL

Southwest Airlines · San Jose to Honolulu

Flights: 446
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 55%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on SJC to HNL lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six 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 446 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Southwest's SJC to HNL record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 46 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 444 completed flights

Avg delay

49 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.22%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

85.9%

Every carrier on SJC to HNL, 808 flights

These figures cover 446 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

Southwest against every carrier on SJC to HNL

Southwest flew 446 of the 808 flights on SJC to HNL, most of the route. Its 82.2% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 85.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 91.1% to Southwest at 82.2%. Two 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.

On-time performance by carrier on SJC to HNL
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 (this page)	446	82.2%	49 min	0.22%	B+

Departure window

When Southwest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 17 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–8am82 flights92.6%
8am–11am211 flights90.0%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm126 flights75.2%
5pm–8pm27 flights—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.6% of the time, against 75.2% for the afternoon window. That is 17 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 211 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on SJC to HNL through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.November best, June worst

June is the worst month at 59.6% on time, 37 points below November, the best at 97.1%. 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 62 flights.

Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 84.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 78.7%. 6 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 53% of the 3,854 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.

Carrier
53%
Late-arriving aircraft
38%
National Airspace System
9%

38% 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 3,854 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 38 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 3,854 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, 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 2,044 of the 3,854 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.22%, 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 costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.3% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 89.0% on time across 446 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 446 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 Southwest on SJC to HNL

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 446 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 82.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 444 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures