Route reliability record
LAX→KOA
Los Angeles to Kailua-Kona
- Flights
- 1,601
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,504 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That rests on 1,601 LAX to KOA flights, of which United Airlines flew 489 at 89.2% on time.
Best time to fly LAX to KOA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.8% of the time and Friday flights 84.6%, against 81.8% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 89.2% on time across 489 flights.
Key figures
On time
81.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,579 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.94%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
89.2% on time across 489 flights
These figures cover 1,601 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to KOA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 89.2% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 78.7%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 91.3% | 47 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 489 | 89.2% | 44 min | 0.82% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 365 | 81.1% | 58 min | 1.37% | B |
| Alaska Airlines | 374 | 78.7% | 37 min | 1.07% | B |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 350 | 74.9% | 65 min | 0.57% | C+ |
United leads Alaska by 11 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on LAX to KOA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Los Angeles to Kailua-Kona
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LAX → KOALos Angeles to Kailua-Kona | United Airlines | 88.5% | 89.2% | 0.82% | 8am–11am, Fri | UA 2373 09:00 |
| 2. LAX → KOALos Angeles to Kailua-Kona | Delta Air Lines | 80.0% | 81.1% | 1.37% | 2pm–5pm, Mon | DL 311 16:44 |
| 3. LAX → KOALos Angeles to Kailua-Kona | Alaska Airlines | 77.9% | 78.7% | 1.07% | 8am–11am, Fri | AS 560 09:26 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am32 flights93.8%
- 8am–11am773 flights82.9%
- 11am–2pm237 flights76.2%
- 2pm–5pm433 flights81.3%
- 5pm–8pm126 flights84.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% 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 76.2% on time against 93.8% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 773 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAX to KOA by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On LAX to KOA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.8% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 76.2%, a wide gap of 17.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.8%
- 8–11am82.9%
- 11am–2pm76.2%
- 2–5pm81.3%
- 5–8pm84.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
May is the best month on the calendar at 90.4% 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 167 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 84.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.7%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 15,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,820 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 14,870 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.94% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.44%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.2% 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 2,504 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 86.5% on time across 1,601 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,601 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in KOA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 90.4% on time and April 70.0%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of April before you think about anything else. 1,579 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to KOA questions
How often is LAX to KOA delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.2% of the 1,601 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to KOA?
United Airlines leads at 89.2% on time across 489 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 78.7%, a gap of 11 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAX to KOA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.8% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 76.2%, 18 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are April delays on LAX to KOA?
April is the weakest month at 70.0% on time, compared with 90.4% in May. Across the year that is 20 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- KOA to LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- United Airlines on LAX to KOA89.2%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to KOA81.1%
- Alaska Airlines on LAX to KOA78.7%
- American Airlines on LAX to KOA74.9%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- HNL to KOA, a related route85.3%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record91.3%
- United Airlines on-time record89.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.1%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. LAX to KOA and KOA to LAX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.