Carrier route record

DLSLC→HNL

Delta Air Lines · Salt Lake City to Honolulu

Flights: 492
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 57%
Carriers: 3

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

Delta on SLC to HNL lands a B, 3 points 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 492 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on SLC to HNL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

81.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 483 completed flights

Avg delay

76 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.63%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

76.7%

Every carrier on SLC to HNL, 858 flights

These figures cover 492 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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

Delta against every carrier on SLC to HNL

Delta flew 492 of the 858 flights on SLC to HNL, most of the route. Its 81.0% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 81.0% to Alaska at 60.7%. 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 SLC to HNL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines (this page)	492	81.0%	76 min	1.63%	B
Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample	184	80.9%	152 min	0.00%	B+
Alaska Airlinesthin sample	182	60.7%	63 min	1.65%	D

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on SLC to HNL

DL 31612:0080.1% · 365 flights

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 492 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am161 flights84.4%
11am–2pm331 flights79.3%
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 79.3% on time against 84.4% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 331 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on SLC to HNL through the year

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

February is the weak month at 63.0% on time, against 91.3% in November. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 60 flights.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 74.3%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 67% of the 6,991 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
67%
National Airspace System
23%
Late-arriving aircraft
9%
Extreme weather
1%

The largest share of delay minutes, 67%, 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 4,684 of the 6,991 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,991 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.63% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 2,994 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 83.0% on time across 492 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. 492 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 Delta on SLC to HNL

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 492 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 81.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 483 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