Carrier route record
DLLAX→LIH
Delta Air Lines · Los Angeles to Lihue
- Flights
- 365
- 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 Delta Air Lines.
Delta on LAX to LIH lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 365 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 377 at 94.7% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, Delta's LAX to LIH record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 47 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 361 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
82.9%
Every carrier on LAX to LIH, 1,605 flights
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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
Delta against every carrier on LAX to LIH
Delta flew 365 of the 1,605 flights on LAX to LIH, about 23% of it. Its 82.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 82.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 100.0% to American at 75.1%. 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 94.7% of the time; American Airlines manages 75.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 446 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 377 | 94.7% | 44 min | 0.80% | A+ |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 122 | 89.3% | 40 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 365 | 82.0% | 79 min | 1.10% | B |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 272 | 76.5% | 46 min | 1.10% | B |
| American Airlines | 446 | 75.1% | 47 min | 0.67% | B+ |
The spread between United and American is 20 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 20 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on LAX to LIH
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Departure window
When Delta 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 365 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Delta's LAX to LIH record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 82.0% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
Delta on LAX to LIH through the year
May is the best month on the calendar at 96.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.0%, a spread of 12 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on LAX to LIH runs when it is late
Delta on LAX to LIH often beats the schedule: 154 of 361 completed flights, 43%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 65 late arrivals split 15 under half an hour, 23 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 27 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early154 flights42.7%
- Within 15 min142 flights39.3%
- 15–29 min late15 flights4.2%
- 30–59 min late23 flights6.4%
- 1–2 hours late16 flights4.4%
- 2+ hours late11 flights3.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 361 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
11 of 70 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. Only 6 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on LAX to LIH
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 April 2026, 7 hours 23 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 18 April 2026 | 7 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 April 2026 | 6 hours 40 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 October 2025 | 4 hours 52 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 January 2026 | 3 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 June 2026 | 3 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 70% of the 5,124 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 70%Carrier
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 70%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,580 of the 5,124 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,124 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.5% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 91.0% on time across 365 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 365 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 Delta on LAX to LIH
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 365 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 82.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 361 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to LIH, every carrier
- Delta on LIH to LAX, the return leg
- United Airlines on LAX to LIH94.7%
- Hawaiian Airlines on LAX to LIH89.3%
- Alaska Airlines on LAX to LIH76.5%
- American Airlines on LAX to LIH75.1%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Do budget airlines really get delayed more? The numbers
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.