Carrier route record
AAHNL→LAX
American Airlines · Honolulu to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 1,183
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 22%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on HNL to LAX earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.3 hours. That rests on 1,183 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 517 at 89.7% on time.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 89.7% on time across 517 flights.
Key figures
On time
84.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,181 completed flights
Avg delay
137 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.08%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.1%
Every carrier on HNL to LAX, 5,458 flights
These figures cover 1,183 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on HNL to LAX
American flew 1,183 of the 5,458 flights on HNL to LAX, about 22% of it. Its 84.6% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 81.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 89.7% to Hawaiian at 63.0%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 89.7% of the time; Hawaiian Airlines manages 63.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 619 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 517 | 89.7% | 39 min | 0.77% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,095 | 88.3% | 72 min | 0.64% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 1,268 | 87.4% | 94 min | 0.47% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,183 | 84.6% | 137 min | 0.08% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 776 | 64.1% | 48 min | 0.39% | D+ |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 619 | 63.0% | 65 min | 1.29% | D |
The spread between Southwest and Hawaiian is 27 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 27 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on HNL to LAX
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 1,183 flights.
- 5am–8am157 flights89.8%
- 8am–11am43 flights88.4%
- 11am–2pm238 flights83.6%
- 2pm–5pm291 flights83.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am454 flights83.7%
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 89.8% on time for the 5am–8am window against 83.4% for 2pm–5pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 454 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on HNL to LAX through the year
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 72.0%. August is the strongest month at 91.8%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 20 points. July was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 91.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.4%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 69% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 69%Carrier
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 69%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 17,000 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 24,876 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.08%, below the national 1.81% 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 stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.4% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 2,556 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 return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.7% on time across 1,183 flights, 8 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,183 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking American on HNL to LAX
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. August runs 91.8% on time and March 72.0%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,181 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- HNL to LAX, every carrier
- American on LAX to HNL, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on HNL to LAX89.7%
- Delta Air Lines on HNL to LAX88.3%
- United Airlines on HNL to LAX87.4%
- Alaska Airlines on HNL to LAX64.1%
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to LAX63.0%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.