Flight number record
UA 1296
United Airlines · Lihue to Los Angeles
- Route
- LIH → LAX
- Departs
- 13:01
- Flights
- 296
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 1296, check with United Airlines.
UA 1296 earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 12 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 30 minutes. That rests on 296 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, UA 1296's record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 122 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
89.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 294 completed flights
Avg delay
29 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.68%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
1.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 296 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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.
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Schedule
When UA 1296 flies
UA 1296 flies LIH to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 13:01, used on 83 of 296 flights, with 14:15 (44 flights) next.
- Departs 13:0183 flights28.0%
- Departs 14:1544 flights14.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 13:01 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and UA 1296 runs 11 points better at 89.5%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
UA 1296 next to LIH to LAX
Every carrier on LIH to LAX combined arrived on time 83.7% of the time across 1,605 flights, so UA 1296 is 6 points ahead of it. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight beats by 11 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 1296thin sample | 296 | 89.5% | 29 min | 0.68% | A+ |
| All United Airlines on LIH–LAX | 377 | 90.9% | 51 min | 0.80% | A+ |
| All carriers on LIH–LAX | 1,605 | 83.7% | 67 min | 0.93% | B+ |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 1296 quarter by quarter
UA 1296 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 91.7% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 77.8%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 74 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Jul–Sep 202525 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202589 flights91.0%
- Jan–Mar 202636 flights77.8%
- Apr–Jun 202684 flights90.5%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights91.7%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 1296 ranged from 83.7% on Sunday to 93.3% on Monday. With about 42 flights behind each day, a spread of 10 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 1296 runs when it is late
UA 1296 often beats the schedule: 115 of 294 completed flights, 39%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 23 of the 31 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 3 reached an hour or more. Not one arrived two hours late.
- 15+ min early115 flights39.1%
- Within 15 min148 flights50.3%
- 15–29 min late23 flights7.8%
- 30–59 min late5 flights1.7%
- 1–2 hours late3 flights1.0%
- 2+ hours late0 flights0.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 294 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Only 13 of 294 completed flights left 15 minutes late or more, too few to say how often the time is made up.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 1296
The latest arrival of the period was on 4 January 2026, 1 hour 13 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The five worst days are spread across January, August, July, May and June, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 4 January 2026 | 1 hour 13 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 7 August 2026 | 1 hour 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 31 July 2026 | 1 hour | Carrier |
| 17 May 2026 | 57 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 13 June 2026 | 42 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why UA 1296 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 53% of the 896 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
53% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 476 minutes out of 896, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 896 delay minutes reported on UA 1296.
Cancellations are rare at 0.68%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 1.0% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 2,615 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 same number turns up on five other city pairs in the data, including BOS to EWR (32), EWR to RDU (20) and CLE to ORD (18), but none flew often enough under UA 1296 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to LIH to LAX only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 296 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 UA 1296
For a booking, UA 1296 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 89.5% on time and 0.68% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- LIH to LAX, every carrier and departure
- LAX to LIH, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 435 on the same route91.0%
- American Airlines 266 on the same route82.2%
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- United Airlines on-time record
- Every United Airlines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- Late aircraft, weather, or the airline: what actually causes US flight delays
A flight number here means United Airlines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.