Carrier route record

UALAX→LIH

United Airlines · Los Angeles to Lihue

Flights: 379
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 United Airlines.

United on LAX to LIH 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 15 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 379 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 365 at 83.9% on time.

Set against the rest of the country, United's LAX to LIH record is 15 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 150 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

92.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 379 completed flights

Avg delay

47 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 379 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 14 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

United against every carrier on LAX to LIH

United flew 379 of the 1,539 flights on LAX to LIH, about 25% of it. Its 92.6% on time is 9 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 84.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two 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. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 83.9% 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.

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 (this page)	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+

Delta leads American by 6 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

Flight by flight

United flight numbers on LAX to LIH

UA 129509:0093.9% · 294 flights

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 379 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am294 flights93.9%
11am–2pm19 flights—
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm66 flights84.8%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 93.9% of the time, against 84.8% for the evening window. That is 9 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 294 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

United on LAX to LIH through the year

Jul–Sep 2025133 flights89.5%
Oct–Dec 2025103 flights95.1%
Jan–Mar 202641 flights92.7%
Apr–Jun 2026102 flights94.1%

Scale runs 80% to 100%. 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 92.6% on time across 379 flights.

Quarter by quarter United on LAX to LIH held fairly steady: 89.5% in Jul–Sep 2025, 95.1% in Oct–Dec 2025, 92.7% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 94.1% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 6 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 100.0% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 84.6%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why United runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 46% of the 1,326 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.

Carrier
46%
Late-arriving aircraft
41%
National Airspace System
13%

41% 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 1,326 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 41 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 1,326 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, 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 613 of the 1,326 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 2.4% 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 90.7% on time across 379 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. 379 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 LIH

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 379 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 92.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 379 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