Carrier route record

DLKOA→LAX

Delta Air Lines · Kailua-Kona to Los Angeles

Flights: 365
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 23%
Carriers: 5

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on KOA 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 13 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 50 minutes. That rests on 365 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 494 at 92.6% on time.

Set against the rest of the country, Delta's KOA to LAX record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 128 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

90.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 354 completed flights

Avg delay

48 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.01%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

86.8%

Every carrier on KOA to LAX, 1,606 flights

These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

Delta against every carrier on KOA to LAX

Delta flew 365 of the 1,606 flights on KOA to LAX, about 23% of it. Its 90.4% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 86.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 92.6% to Alaska at 78.4%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on KOA to LAX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	494	92.6%	54 min	1.01%	A
Delta Air Lines (this page)	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+

The spread between United and Alaska is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on KOA to LAX

DL 48621:3090.4% · 365 flights

Departure window

When Delta 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 365 flights.

The overnight block holds up unusually well at 90.4% on time across 365 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 365 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on KOA to LAX through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights93.4%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights86.7%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights91.7%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights89.9%

Scale runs 80% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 90.4% on time across 365 flights.

Quarter by quarter Delta on KOA to LAX held fairly steady: 93.4% in Jul–Sep 2025, 86.7% in Oct–Dec 2025, 91.7% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 89.9% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 7 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 96.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 84.0%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 65% of the 1,622 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.

Carrier
65%
National Airspace System
21%
Late-arriving aircraft
14%

The largest share of delay minutes, 65%, 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 1,055 of the 1,622 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,622 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations run at 3.01%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.5% 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 81.1% on time across 365 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 365 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 Delta on KOA to LAX

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.01% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you roughly 50 minutes; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8pm–5am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 354 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures