Carrier route record
UALAX→KOA
United Airlines · Los Angeles to Kailua-Kona
- Flights
- 489
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 31%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on LAX to KOA 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 12 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 489 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 365 at 81.1% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, United's LAX to KOA record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 119 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
89.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 483 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
81.8%
Every carrier on LAX to KOA, 1,601 flights
These figures cover 489 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 KOA
United flew 489 of the 1,601 flights on LAX to KOA, about 31% of it. Its 89.2% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 81.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 91.3% to American at 74.9%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 91.3% | 47 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 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+ |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 81.1%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on LAX to KOA
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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 489 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am372 flights90.8%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm116 flights85.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 90.8% on time for the 8am–11am window against 85.0% for 5pm–8pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 372 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on LAX to KOA through the year
November is the best month on the calendar at 96.9% 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 66 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 94.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 85.1%, a spread of 9 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on LAX to KOA runs when it is late
United on LAX to KOA often beats the schedule: 183 of 483 completed flights, 38%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 28 of the 52 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 9 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early183 flights37.9%
- Within 15 min248 flights51.3%
- 15–29 min late28 flights5.8%
- 30–59 min late15 flights3.1%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.2%
- 2+ hours late3 flights0.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 483 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 47 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 24 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 29 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 KOA.
The worst days
Worst days for United on LAX to KOA
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 January 2026, 3 hours 43 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 5 January 2026 | 3 hours 43 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 July 2026 | 2 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 April 2026 | 2 hours 40 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 12 April 2026 | 1 hour 54 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 3 May 2026 | 1 hour 50 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 2,263 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Carrier
- 33%National Airspace System
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 890 of the 2,263 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,263 reported delay minutes.
33% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 756 minutes out of 2,263, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 1.9% 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 runs 91.5% on time across 489 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. 489 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 LAX to KOA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 489 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 89.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 483 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to KOA, every carrier
- United on KOA to LAX, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to KOA81.1%
- Alaska Airlines on LAX to KOA78.7%
- American Airlines on LAX to KOA74.9%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- Late aircraft, weather, or the airline: what actually causes US flight delays
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.