Carrier route record
UAKOA→LAX
United Airlines · Kailua-Kona to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 494
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 31%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United 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 15 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 55 minutes. That rests on 494 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 365 at 90.4% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, United's KOA to LAX record is 15 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 150 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
92.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 488 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.01%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
86.8%
Every carrier on KOA to LAX, 1,606 flights
These figures cover 494 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 14 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 KOA to LAX
United flew 494 of the 1,606 flights on KOA to LAX, about 31% of it. Its 92.6% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 86.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first 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. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 90.4% 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 (this page) | 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
United flight numbers on KOA to LAX
Departure window
When United 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 494 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm239 flights91.9%
- 2pm–5pm134 flights89.6%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am121 flights97.5%
Scale runs 80% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is the strongest at 97.5% on time. The full set of windows spans 8 points.
Across the year
United on KOA to LAX through the year
November is the best month on the calendar at 100.0% 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 65 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 98.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 86.6%. 12 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 57% of the 1,957 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.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%National Airspace System
- 17%Carrier
57% 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 1,957 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 57 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 1,957 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.01% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 1.8% 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 89.1% on time across 494 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 494 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 United on KOA to LAX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 494 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 92.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 488 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- KOA to LAX, every carrier
- United on LAX to KOA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on KOA to LAX90.4%
- American Airlines on KOA to LAX83.8%
- Alaska Airlines on KOA to LAX78.4%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.