Carrier route record
UAHNL→LAX
United Airlines · Honolulu to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 1,268
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 23%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on HNL to LAX 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 10 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 1,268 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
87.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,261 completed flights
Avg delay
94 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.47%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.1%
Every carrier on HNL to LAX, 5,458 flights
These figures cover 1,268 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 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
United against every carrier on HNL to LAX
United flew 1,268 of the 5,458 flights on HNL to LAX, about 23% of it. Its 87.4% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 81.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three 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 (this page) | 1,268 | 87.4% | 94 min | 0.47% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 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
United flight numbers on HNL to LAX
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 14 points, against 27 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am142 flights90.1%
- 8am–11am165 flights90.9%
- 11am–2pm376 flights83.4%
- 2pm–5pm113 flights77.0%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am472 flights91.0%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 91.0% on time across 472 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 472 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on HNL to LAX through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 94.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. June was the busiest month here, with 159 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 91.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 84.5%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 15,000 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 44%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 14,972 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, 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 6,517 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.47%, 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
5.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 runs 84.5% on time across 1,268 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,268 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 United on HNL to LAX
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 94.4% on time and March 73.9%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,261 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- HNL to LAX, every carrier
- United on LAX to HNL, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on HNL to LAX89.7%
- Delta Air Lines on HNL to LAX88.3%
- American Airlines on HNL to LAX84.6%
- Alaska Airlines on HNL to LAX64.1%
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to LAX63.0%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.