Carrier route record
AALAX→HNL
American Airlines · Los Angeles to Honolulu
- Flights
- 1,182
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 21%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,182 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,294 at 84.0% on time.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 84.0% on time across 1,294 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,179 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.2%
Every carrier on LAX to HNL, 5,540 flights
These figures cover 1,182 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on LAX to HNL
American flew 1,182 of the 5,540 flights on LAX to HNL, about 21% of it. Its 76.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 84.0% to Alaska at 65.9%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 84.0% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 65.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,054 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,294 | 84.0% | 91 min | 0.31% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,095 | 80.6% | 83 min | 0.27% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,182 | 76.2% | 61 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 516 | 75.5% | 47 min | 0.19% | B+ |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 399 | 66.6% | 99 min | 1.75% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,054 | 65.9% | 67 min | 1.23% | C |
The spread between United and Alaska is 18 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 18 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on LAX to HNL
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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 13 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am365 flights81.9%
- 11am–2pm11 flights—
- 2pm–5pm356 flights80.3%
- 5pm–8pm426 flights69.3%
- 8pm–5am24 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 81.9% of the time, against 69.3% for the evening window. That is 13 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 426 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 81.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.4%, a spread of 19 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on LAX to HNL runs when it is late
American on LAX to HNL often beats the schedule: 394 of 1,179 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 281 late arrivals split 116 under half an hour, 80 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 85 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early394 flights33.4%
- Within 15 min504 flights42.7%
- 15–29 min late116 flights9.8%
- 30–59 min late80 flights6.8%
- 1–2 hours late54 flights4.6%
- 2+ hours late31 flights2.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,179 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
53 of 245 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 22% of them. In the other direction, 89 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at HNL.
The worst days
Worst days for American on LAX to HNL
The latest arrival of the period was on 12 June 2026, 16 hours 23 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 12 June 2026 | 16 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 August 2026 | 8 hours 50 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 5 July 2026 | 5 hours 50 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 December 2025 | 5 hours 25 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 February 2026 | 4 hours 49 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 17,014 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,147 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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 82.2% on time across 1,182 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,182 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. 1,179 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 HNL84.0%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to HNL80.6%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to HNL75.5%
- Hawaiian Airlines on LAX to HNL66.6%
- Alaska Airlines on LAX to HNL65.9%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.