Carrier route record
DLKOA→LAX
Delta Air Lines · Kailua-Kona to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 23%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 50 minutes. That rests on 365 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 489 at 91.5% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, Delta's KOA to LAX record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 131 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 354 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.01%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
86.5%
Every carrier on KOA to LAX, 1,601 flights
These figures cover 365 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
Delta against every carrier on KOA to LAX
Delta flew 365 of the 1,601 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 86.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 91.5% to Alaska at 79.5%. 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 91.5% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 79.5%. 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 | 489 | 91.5% | 77 min | 1.02% | A |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 365 | 90.4% | 50 min | 3.01% | A− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 350 | 83.2% | 116 min | 1.14% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 82.6% | 48 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 374 | 79.5% | 48 min | 0.80% | B+ |
The spread between United and Alaska is 12 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 12 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on KOA to LAX
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 202530 flights96.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights86.7%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights91.7%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights89.9%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights91.8%
Scale runs 80% to 100%.
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.
Delta on KOA to LAX did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 86.7%, a swing of 10 points on roughly 73 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 98.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 82.4%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on KOA to LAX runs when it is late
Delta on KOA to LAX often beats the schedule: 123 of 354 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 34 late arrivals split 9 under half an hour, 16 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 9 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early123 flights34.7%
- Within 15 min197 flights55.6%
- 15–29 min late9 flights2.5%
- 30–59 min late16 flights4.5%
- 1–2 hours late7 flights2.0%
- 2+ hours late2 flights0.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 354 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 43 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 16 still arrived on time. Only 7 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on KOA to LAX
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 March 2026, 2 hours 22 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 7 March 2026 | 2 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 January 2026 | 2 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 December 2025 | 1 hour 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 May 2026 | 1 hour 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 March 2026 | 1 hour 14 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 64% of the 1,693 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 64%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 14%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 64%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,079 of the 1,693 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,693 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.01%, against 1.89% 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 8.3% 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 about 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.
Related
Where to go next
- KOA to LAX, every carrier
- Delta on LAX to KOA, the return leg
- United Airlines on KOA to LAX91.5%
- American Airlines on KOA to LAX83.2%
- Alaska Airlines on KOA to LAX79.5%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- 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.