Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL309
Honolulu (HNL) to Atlanta (ATL) · scheduled 3:05 PM – 5:54 AM
How DL309 performs
691 operations, September 2024 – July 2026.
DL309 arrived on time 79.6% of the time, against 81.0% for all HNL → ATL flights, so this departure is 1.4 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 1.4 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 691 operations, September 2024 – July 2026 · If DL309 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL309 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL309 | 79.6% | 1.01% | -6 min | 5.6% | 691 |
| Delta Air Lines on HNL → ATL | 81.0% | 0.79% | -7 min | 6.3% | 1,145 |
| All HNL → ATL flights | 81.0% | 0.79% | -7 min | 6.3% | 1,145 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · September 2024 – July 2026
Why DL309 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DL309 on HNL → ATL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering September 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies DL309 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL309 pushed back an average of 56 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 3 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into HNL just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 674 of 686 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL309 | 19% | 67% | 10% |
| Network, same turn | 23% | 40% | 9% |
The schedule leaves a long gap on the ground, which gives a late aircraft room to catch up before this flight pushes back.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 90 minutes to 3 hours. How often DL309’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL309 left 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering September 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves HNL late, does that still matter by the time it reaches ATL?
DL309 pushes back an average of 13.6 minutes late and reaches the gate at ATL an average of 4.7 minutes late. The 8.8 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. It spends 19.8 minutes on the taxiways at HNL, 3.1 minutes longer than a typical HNL departure in the same hour.
On arrival at ATL, DL309 spends 8.4 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 1.2 minutes shorter than a typical ATL arrival (9.6 min).
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached ATL. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 14,144 departures from HNL scheduled in the clock hour DL309 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at ATL (1,012,161 flights), not just DL309’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · September 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves HNL
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL309 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 14,144 departures from HNL are scheduled in the 3 PM–4 PM hour over the period, against 186,300 across the whole day.
DL309 is scheduled out of HNL at 3:05 PM, in the 3 PM–4 PM bank. Departures from HNL in that hour arrive on time 78.3% of the time against 85.3% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 7.0 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from HNL to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · September 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes DL309 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| HNL→MSP Honolulu to Minneapolis | November 5, 2023 – September 8, 2024 | 308 | 89.1% |
| DEN→SEA Denver to Seattle | October 9, 2023 – November 4, 2023 | 27 | — |
| SEA→DEN Seattle to Denver | October 9, 2023 – November 4, 2023 | 27 | — |
| FAR→MSP Fargo to Minneapolis | September 5, 2023 – October 8, 2023 | 34 | — |
| SEA→RDU Seattle to Raleigh–Durham | July 1, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 66 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL309 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
31 min late
against a median of 6 min early
Percentiles over 691 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering September 2024 – July 2026
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 691 records of DL309 operating HNL → ATL, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
Analysis last recomputed