Carrier route record
UAKOA→SFO
United Airlines · Kailua-Kona to San Francisco
- Flights
- 958
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 80%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on KOA to SFO 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 11 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 958 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's KOA to SFO record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 108 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 941 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.46%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
84.6%
Every carrier on KOA to SFO, 1,202 flights
These figures cover 958 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on KOA to SFO
United flew 958 of the 1,202 flights on KOA to SFO, most of the route. Its 88.1% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 84.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 88.1% to Alaska at 71.0%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 958 | 88.1% | 70 min | 1.46% | A |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 244 | 71.0% | 60 min | 1.23% | C |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on KOA to SFO
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 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 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am83 flights100.0%
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm259 flights81.3%
- 2pm–5pm337 flights83.1%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am278 flights96.7%
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 81.3% on time against 100.0% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 337 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on KOA to SFO through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 96.7% 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 124 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 92.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 82.6%, a spread of 10 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on KOA to SFO runs when it is late
United on KOA to SFO often beats the schedule: 388 of 941 completed flights, 41%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 112 late arrivals split 53 under half an hour, 33 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 26 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early388 flights41.2%
- Within 15 min441 flights46.9%
- 15–29 min late53 flights5.6%
- 30–59 min late33 flights3.5%
- 1–2 hours late15 flights1.6%
- 2+ hours late11 flights1.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 941 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
26 of 91 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 29% of them. 47 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on KOA to SFO
The latest arrival of the period was on 23 July 2026, 19 hours 26 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 23 July 2026 | 19 hours 26 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 November 2025 | 17 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 April 2026 | 7 hours 44 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 1 August 2026 | 5 hours 31 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 15 December 2025 | 3 hours 23 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 7,841 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 7,841 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 38 to one. The split is drawn from 7,841 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,225 of the 7,841 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.46% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.31%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.8% 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 2,368 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 85.7% on time across 958 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 958 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 SFO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 958 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 88.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 941 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- KOA to SFO, every carrier
- United on SFO to KOA, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on KOA to SFO71.0%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.