Carrier route record
UAHNL→LAX
United Airlines · Honolulu to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 1,294
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 23%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on HNL to LAX earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 1,294 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 516 at 88.5% on time.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 88.5% on time across 516 flights.
Key figures
On time
85.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,286 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.54%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.3%
Every carrier on HNL to LAX, 5,540 flights
These figures cover 1,294 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on HNL to LAX
United flew 1,294 of the 5,540 flights on HNL to LAX, about 23% of it. Its 85.8% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 80.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 88.5% to Hawaiian at 64.0%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 88.5% of the time; Hawaiian Airlines manages 64.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 400 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 516 | 88.5% | 36 min | 0.58% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,095 | 87.8% | 67 min | 0.73% | A+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,294 | 85.8% | 87 min | 0.54% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 1,182 | 82.2% | 135 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,053 | 65.5% | 49 min | 0.57% | C+ |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 400 | 64.0% | 71 min | 2.00% | D |
The spread between Southwest and Hawaiian is 25 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 25 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on HNL to LAX
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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 22 points, against 25 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am204 flights89.1%
- 8am–11am103 flights92.2%
- 11am–2pm417 flights81.9%
- 2pm–5pm105 flights70.2%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am465 flights90.1%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 92.2% of the time, against 70.2% for the afternoon window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 465 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on HNL to LAX through the year
August is the worst month at 73.0% on time, 21 points below September, the best at 94.4%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 186 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 82.2%, a spread of 6 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on HNL to LAX runs when it is late
United on HNL to LAX often beats the schedule: 528 of 1,286 completed flights, 41%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 182 late arrivals split 69 under half an hour, 46 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 67 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early528 flights41.1%
- Within 15 min576 flights44.8%
- 15–29 min late69 flights5.4%
- 30–59 min late46 flights3.6%
- 1–2 hours late34 flights2.6%
- 2+ hours late33 flights2.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,286 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
43 of 173 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 25% of them. 52 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on HNL to LAX
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 August 2026, 17 hours 30 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 August 2026 | 17 hours 30 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 December 2025 | 14 hours 36 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 March 2026 | 13 hours 2 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 May 2026 | 9 hours 36 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 November 2025 | 9 hours 22 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 42%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 to one. The split is drawn from 15,763 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,661 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.54%, 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 stage length
What a delay here costs
5.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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 84.0% on time across 1,294 flights, within 2 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 1,294 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 August 73.0%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,286 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 LAX88.5%
- Delta Air Lines on HNL to LAX87.8%
- American Airlines on HNL to LAX82.2%
- Alaska Airlines on HNL to LAX65.5%
- Hawaiian Airlines on HNL to LAX64.0%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.