This has been quite the week for flight delays and cancellations, including in Hawaii. As a result of the Microsoft Tech meltdown, in the past two days there were 402 Hawaii flights delayed in addition to dozens cancelled at the four major Hawaii airports, Honolulu, Maui, Kona and Kauai. Delta has been the most impacted..
In light of ongoing concerns about flight delays and cancellations, we investigated the latest U.S. DOT performance data of all U.S. airlines with flights to Hawaii based on their most recent reporting. It’s worth noting that even before this week’s technology debacle, the airlines and government had clashed over causes of higher than normal rates of delayed and canceled flights. Airlines have argued that the government has been responsible due to air traffic control problems and is at fault for not having enough staff, while the government has blamed the carriers.
Luckily, those airlines with the very worst recent on-time performance don’t even fly to Hawaii. Or at least not yet. Those include JetBlue, Hawaii hopeful Frontier, Spirit, and once-Hawaii-flying Allegiant.
Also see New 2024 Airline Rules Include Refunds For Hawaii Flight Delays.
April 2024 on-time flight arrival data for airlines flying to Hawaii.
According to the U.S. DOT, the overall on-time arrival rate for April 2024 was 80.4%. The good news here is that this is an improvement from both March 2024 (78.7%) and April 2023 (75.7%). Data below excludes airlines’ code-share partners. Airlines came in somewhat tightly grouped, ranging from 75% to 84% of flights arriving on-time. But when it came to cancellations, the range was greater, from as few as 1 in 1,000 flights cancelled to as many as 13 in 1,000 flights.
1. Delta Airlines: Delta emerged as the most reliable airline flying to Hawaii in April 2024, the latest month just reported, with an on-time arrival rate of 84.1% as well as the lowest cancellation rate of just 0.1%.
2. Hawaiian Airlines: Hawaiian Airlines came in second with an 84.0% on-time arrival rate, but was the worst of the pack in terms of cancellations, with a rate of 1.3%.
3. United Airlines: United Airlines came in third, having an on-time arrival rate of 80.2% and a cancellation rate that tied for third with Alaska at 0.6%.
4. Southwest Airlines: Southwest had a 79.8% on-time arrival rate and second place 0.4% cancellation rate.
5. Alaska Airlines: Alaska Airlines came in fifth for on-time arrivals. They had an on-time arrival rate of 78.7% and third place tie of 0.6% flight cancellation rate.
6. American Airlines: American Airlines scored the worst of the six airlines flying to Hawaii in terms of on-time arrivals. It had a rate of 74.9% as well as a second to the worst place cancellation flight rate of 1.0%.
Analysis and insights for on-time reporting.
Delta Airlines continues to excel in this area, taking the top spot for on-time performance, reflecting its robust operational efficiency. They also continue to rank highly, scoring at the top with the fewest flight cancellations.
Hawaiian Airlines’ on-time performance in April 2024 approached its previous top standards. That comes following a myriad of related issues they have faced, some within and some beyond its control. Instead of coming in first for the month, as they had countless times over the years, Hawaiian came in second, with an 84.0% on-time arrival rate and a shorter than average delay time. Kudos on the improvement.
April 2024’s performance highlights the challenges of airlines serving Hawaii.
While some airlines continue to face significant operational issues, others are improving, and some demonstrate exceptional performance. Please share your experience with Hawaii flight delays and cancellations. Mahalo!
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Those “on time” reports are really misleading. I have to take a short flight to a major hub every time I travel. It takes 35 minutes. But when booking, it shows 1hr 20 min flight time. Hard to be late with almost an hour cushion. I have flown on some flights that over state flight time by 2 hours. Doesn’t bother me, as I have no choice. But I find it funny when they claim “we will arrive on time today”. Have a nice flight.
A gazillion years ago, I had to fly Delta a lot for business. Back then i hated it because of their history of canceled and delayed flights. We used to joke that Delta was a acronym for Doesn’t Ever Leave The Airport! Times have changed, I guess.
Without actually classifying why there were cancellations that number is functionally useless. I cannot imagine anyone that actually wants to fly on an aircraft with severe enough mechanical issues that they have to cancel the flight. And then of course there are cancellations due to weather which the airlines have No control over so if you don’t parse the reasons for cancellations out the numbers are worthless. Numbers without context are just that, numbers.
Isn’t MicroSoft products just wonderful? That is what you get when you get garbage from the lowest bidder & you try to go cheap! I ditched their trash long ago! Enjoy being hacked regularly as millions of sheep do every year. They must like it, because they continue to buy it!
I have been using Windows since its first iteration back in the 80’s and I have Never been hacked so not sure what you are talking about Willis. And of course there are those that still claim that Macs don’t get hacked as well as Linux users. Oops, bad answer because security is more based upon the individual user and how they CHOOSE to protect their investments. By the way, this had Nothing to do with being hacked. It was a patch that obviously wasn’t fully tested.
We arrived her last Saturday. They had pre boarded our flt from HNL to OGG, and then pulled all off the plane. There was a mechanical issue with the plane going to Kona and people missing their connections to the Mainland so they were going to use the OGG plane and Completely Cancelled The OGG flt which sent all of us running over to a desk that had exactly 1 person to wait on EVERYONE. Fortunately, they had already rebooked us on a flt that was to leave 20 minutes later – which of course did not which resulted in us losing our entire first day on Maui. The same thing happened to us last year in May. Moving inter flts around. We would like to fly direct from SAN to OGG, but we prefer the larger Airbus.
It will be interesting to see the Hawaii July numbers when they are released as April’s #1 airline of Delta is the #1 worst airline in the U.S. right now for both delays and cancellations due to the Microsoft debacle.
Robert D: We flew yesterday from OGG TO LIH no problems.
I wasn’t aware Delta flew inter-island.
Delta does not fly one island but does fly directly to Oahu Maui, Kauai, and Big Island.
Yes, I’m aware of that but GLORIA G stated she flew from OGG to LIH and we were discussing Delta.