Route reliability record
KOA→LAX
Kailua-Kona to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 1,606
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,504 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route 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 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 1,606 KOA to LAX flights, of which United Airlines flew 494 at 92.6% on time.
Best time to fly KOA to LAX: a 8pm–5am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 90.2%, against 86.8% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 92.6% on time across 494 flights.
Key figures
On time
86.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,581 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.37%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
92.6% on time across 494 flights
These figures cover 1,606 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on KOA to LAX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 92.6% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 78.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 374 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 494 | 92.6% | 54 min | 1.01% | A |
| Delta Air Lines | 365 | 90.4% | 48 min | 3.01% | A− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 87.0% | 43 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 350 | 83.8% | 139 min | 0.86% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 374 | 78.4% | 57 min | 0.80% | B+ |
Delta Air Lines cancels 3.0% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on KOA to LAX
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Kailua-Kona to Los Angeles
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. KOA → LAXKailua-Kona to Los Angeles | United Airlines | 91.7% | 92.6% | 1.01% | 8pm–5am, Tue | UA 2372 13:15 |
| 2. KOA → LAXKailua-Kona to Los Angeles | Delta Air Lines | 87.7% | 90.4% | 3.01% | 8pm–5am, Wed | DL 486 21:30 |
| 3. KOA → LAXKailua-Kona to Los Angeles | Alaska Airlines | 77.8% | 78.4% | 0.80% | 2pm–5pm, Wed | AS 561 13:20 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 11 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am8 flights—
- 11am–2pm398 flights85.7%
- 2pm–5pm589 flights81.6%
- 5pm–8pm24 flights—
- 8pm–5am587 flights92.5%
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 92.5% on time across 587 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 589 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
September is the best month on the calendar at 93.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 166 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 83.7%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 16,000 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
- 37%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 16,034 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, 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 5,872 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.7% 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 2,504 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 81.8% on time across 1,606 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,606 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in LAX after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 93.3% on time and March 80.6%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,581 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
KOA to LAX questions
How often is KOA to LAX delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.2% of the 1,606 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on KOA to LAX?
United Airlines leads at 92.6% on time across 494 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 78.4%, a gap of 14 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on KOA to LAX?
The 8pm–5am departure window is the strongest at 92.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 81.6%, 11 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are March delays on KOA to LAX?
March is the weakest month at 80.6% on time, compared with 93.3% in September. Across the year that is 13 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to KOA — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- United Airlines on KOA to LAX92.6%
- Delta Air Lines on KOA to LAX90.4%
- American Airlines on KOA to LAX83.8%
- Alaska Airlines on KOA to LAX78.4%
- KOA to HNL, a related route85.1%
- SFO to LAX, a related route73.9%
- KOA to OGG, a related route86.8%
- United Airlines on-time record92.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record90.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record87.0%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. KOA to LAX and LAX to KOA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.