Carrier route record
AALAX→HNL
American Airlines · Los Angeles to Honolulu
- Flights
- 1,183
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 22%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on LAX to HNL lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,183 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,268 at 84.5% on time.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 84.5% on time across 1,268 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,178 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.17%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.9%
Every carrier on LAX to HNL, 5,459 flights
These figures cover 1,183 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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
American against every carrier on LAX to HNL
American flew 1,183 of the 5,459 flights on LAX to HNL, about 22% of it. Its 76.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 84.5% to Hawaiian at 63.2%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 84.5% of the time; Hawaiian Airlines manages 63.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 619 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,268 | 84.5% | 97 min | 0.39% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 517 | 81.6% | 51 min | 0.19% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,095 | 80.7% | 75 min | 0.37% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,183 | 76.7% | 57 min | 0.17% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 777 | 67.1% | 72 min | 0.90% | C+ |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 619 | 63.2% | 82 min | 1.29% | D |
The spread between United and Hawaiian is 21 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 21 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on LAX to HNL
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 12 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am365 flights82.5%
- 11am–2pm37 flights73.0%
- 2pm–5pm330 flights80.5%
- 5pm–8pm427 flights70.4%
- 8pm–5am24 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 82.5% of the time, against 70.4% for the evening window. That is 12 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 427 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on LAX to HNL through the year
October is the best month on the calendar at 89.3% 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 124 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.5%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
47% 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 47 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 15,700 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 5,729 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.17%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,556 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 84.6% on time across 1,183 flights, 8 points above 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,183 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on LAX to HNL
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 89.3% on time and April 53.3%, a swing of 36 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of April before you think about anything else. 1,178 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to HNL, every carrier
- American on HNL to LAX, the return leg
- United Airlines on LAX to HNL84.5%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to HNL81.6%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to HNL80.7%
- Alaska Airlines on LAX to HNL67.1%
- Hawaiian Airlines on LAX to HNL63.2%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) 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.