Carrier route record

AALAX→LIH

American Airlines · Los Angeles to Lihue

Flights: 391
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 25%
Carriers: 6

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on LAX to LIH lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 391 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 379 at 92.6% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on LAX to LIH from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

77.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 389 completed flights

Avg delay

48 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.00%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

84.1%

Every carrier on LAX to LIH, 1,539 flights

These figures cover 391 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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

American against every carrier on LAX to LIH

American flew 391 of the 1,539 flights on LAX to LIH, about 25% of it. Its 77.6% on time is 7 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 84.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 95.7% to American at 77.6%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 92.6% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 83.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 365 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on LAX to LIH
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 (this page)	391	77.6%	48 min	0.00%	B+

United leads Delta by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

Flight by flight

American flight numbers on LAX to LIH

AA 11909:1279.5% · 259 flights

Departure window

When American 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 391 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am259 flights79.5%
11am–2pm91 flights74.4%
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm41 flights73.2%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 79.5% on time for the 8am–11am window against 73.2% for 5pm–8pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 259 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on LAX to LIH through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights84.6%
Oct–Dec 202577 flights76.6%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights74.2%
Apr–Jun 2026132 flights75.8%

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 77.6% on time across 391 flights.

American on LAX to LIH did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 84.6% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 74.2%, a swing of 10 points on roughly 98 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 72.4%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 4,140 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
43%
Carrier
39%
National Airspace System
19%

43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 4,140 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 43 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 4,140 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, 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 1,602 of the 4,140 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.81% 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

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.4% on time across 391 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 391 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 American on LAX to LIH

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 391 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 77.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 389 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures