Route profile
HNL→IAH
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Honolulu to Houston, 3,904 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 97% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 1,213 flights. How this is calculated
HNL → IAH arrives on time 87.2% of the time; the return trip, IAH → HNL, arrives on time 69.6% of the time, a 17.6-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
HNL → IAH spends 28.5 minutes on the ground on a 3,904-mile trip: 19.7 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at HNL and 8.7 minutes from touchdown to gate at IAH.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
This route stays close to typical even on its worst days, a smaller gap than 95% of 4,598 comparable routes.
A typical arrival is 9 min early, and the worst tenth are only 28 minutes worse than that.
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 4,598 in the comparison.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
19 min late
against a median of 9 min early
Percentiles over 1,213 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at IAH after arriving from HNL.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 30% | High risk |
| 45 min | 12% | Some risk |
| 60 min | 5.8% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 2.1% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 1.3% | Low 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 0.82% of the time and diverts 0.25% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 1,200 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 19 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 1,213 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Why HNL → IAH runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for HNL → IAH. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,213 | 87.2% | 0.82% | -9 min | 2.2% |
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA252 United Airlines | 7:55 PM | 1,127 | 86.6% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Thursday is historically the most reliable day and Tuesday the least, a gap of 9.8 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 81.9% against 85.0% in the 12 months before — declining by 3.1 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,213 HNL → IAH 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