Route profile
DTW→HNL
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Detroit to Honolulu, 4,475 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 64% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 971 flights. How this is calculated · What counts as on time
DTW → HNL arrives on time 82.0% of the time; the return trip, HNL → DTW, arrives on time 81.4% of the time.
DTW → HNL spends 26.1 minutes on the ground on a 4,475-mile trip: 18.7 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DTW and 7.4 minutes from touchdown to gate at HNL.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
Reliability on this route has fallen unusually sharply over the past year, a bigger swing than 91% of 5,368 comparable routes.
76.9% on time over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), against 86.5% in the 12 months before (2024-08 to 2025-07), a change of 9.6 points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 5,368 in the comparison.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
36 min late
against a median of 8 min early
Percentiles over 971 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at HNL after arriving from DTW.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 35% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 18% | High risk |
| 60 min | 11% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 7.1% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 5.6% | Some risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 0.51% of the time and diverts 0.62% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 960 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 36 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 971 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Why DTW → HNL runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DTW → HNL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 971 | 82.0% | 0.51% | -8 min | 7.2% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Sunday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 5.1 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 76.9% against 86.5% in the 12 months before — declining by 9.6 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 971 DTW → HNL flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed