Route reliability record
LAX→LIH
Los Angeles to Lihue
- Flights
- 1,539
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,615 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route 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 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 55 minutes. That rests on 1,539 LAX to LIH flights, of which United Airlines flew 379 at 92.6% on time.
Best time to fly LAX to LIH: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 86.2%, against 84.1% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 92.6% on time across 379 flights.
Key figures
On time
84.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,529 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.39%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
92.6% on time across 379 flights
These figures cover 1,539 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to LIH
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 92.6% of the time; American Airlines manages 77.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 391 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 95.7% | 176 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 379 | 92.6% | 47 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 184 | 85.2% | 51 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 365 | 83.9% | 82 min | 1.10% | B |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 197 | 78.4% | 36 min | 1.02% | B |
| American Airlines | 391 | 77.6% | 48 min | 0.00% | B+ |
The spread between United and American 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
Flights on LAX to LIH
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Los Angeles to Lihue
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 → LIHLos Angeles to Lihue | United Airlines | 92.6% | 92.6% | 0.00% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 1295 09:00 |
| 2. LAX → LIHLos Angeles to Lihue | Delta Air Lines | 83.0% | 83.9% | 1.10% | 2pm–5pm, Thu | DL 428 14:25 |
| 3. LAX → LIHLos Angeles to Lihue | American Airlines | 77.6% | 77.6% | 0.00% | 8am–11am, Tue | AA 119 09:12 |
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 14 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am58 flights93.1%
- 8am–11am883 flights84.7%
- 11am–2pm110 flights78.9%
- 2pm–5pm376 flights84.1%
- 5pm–8pm112 flights79.5%
- 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 78.9% on time against 93.1% 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 883 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 92.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. June was the busiest month here, with 173 flights.
The day of the week is close to irrelevant here: 3 points separates the best day from the worst. Weekly demand peaks are not what drives the delays on this operation.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 55% of the 13,000 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.
- 55%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 55%, 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 7,235 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 13,248 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 93.1% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.39%, 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 actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 2,615 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 83.2% on time across 1,539 flights, within about a point 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 1,539 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 LIH 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. September runs 92.0% on time and April 73.2%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of April before you think about anything else. 1,529 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to LIH questions
How often is LAX to LIH delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.9% of the 1,539 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to LIH?
United Airlines leads at 92.6% on time across 379 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 77.6%, a gap of 15 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 LIH?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.1% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 78.9%, 14 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 LIH?
April is the weakest month at 73.2% on time, compared with 92.0% in September. Across the year that is 19 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
- LIH to LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- United Airlines on LAX to LIH92.6%
- Hawaiian Airlines on LAX to LIH85.2%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to LIH83.9%
- Alaska Airlines on LAX to LIH78.4%
- American Airlines on LAX to LIH77.6%
- LAX to SFO, a related route64.8%
- HNL to LIH, a related route84.9%
- LAX to JFK, a related route79.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record95.7%
- United Airlines on-time record92.6%
- Hawaiian Airlines on-time record85.2%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. LAX to LIH and LIH 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.