Carrier route record
UALAX→HNL
United Airlines · Los Angeles to Honolulu
- Flights
- 1,294
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 23%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on LAX to HNL earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 1,294 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,095 at 80.6% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, United's LAX to HNL record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 67 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,287 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.31%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.2%
Every carrier on LAX to HNL, 5,540 flights
These figures cover 1,294 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 LAX to HNL
United flew 1,294 of the 5,540 flights on LAX to HNL, about 23% of it. Its 84.0% on time is 8 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first 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. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 80.6% 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 (this page) | 1,294 | 84.0% | 91 min | 0.31% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,095 | 80.6% | 83 min | 0.27% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 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 Delta and Alaska is 15 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 15 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on LAX to HNL
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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 12 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am52 flights92.3%
- 8am–11am387 flights87.2%
- 11am–2pm389 flights83.5%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm466 flights80.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.3% of the time, against 80.8% 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 466 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on LAX to HNL through the year
December is the weak month at 76.9% on time, against 93.1% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 186 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.7%, a spread of 9 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on LAX to HNL runs when it is late
United on LAX to HNL often beats the schedule: 457 of 1,287 completed flights, 36%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 206 late arrivals split 81 under half an hour, 44 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 81 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early457 flights35.5%
- Within 15 min624 flights48.5%
- 15–29 min late81 flights6.3%
- 30–59 min late44 flights3.4%
- 1–2 hours late32 flights2.5%
- 2+ hours late49 flights3.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,287 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 232 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 75 still arrived on time. 49 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on LAX to HNL
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 November 2025, 13 hours 17 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 20 November 2025 | 13 hours 17 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 August 2026 | 10 hours 14 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 January 2026 | 10 hours 12 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 July 2026 | 10 hours 1 minute | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 3 October 2025 | 8 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
58% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 58 to one. The split is drawn from 18,790 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,563 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.31%, below the national 1.89% 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
6.3% 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 an hour and a half, 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 runs 85.8% on time across 1,294 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,294 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 United on LAX to HNL
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 93.1% on time and December 76.9%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,287 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to HNL, every carrier
- United on HNL to LAX, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to HNL80.6%
- American Airlines on LAX to HNL76.2%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to HNL75.5%
- Hawaiian Airlines on LAX to HNL66.6%
- Alaska Airlines on LAX to HNL65.9%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Daniel K. Inouye International (HNL) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- 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.