Carrier route record
UALAX→LIH
United Airlines · Los Angeles to Lihue
- Flights
- 377
- 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 United Airlines.
United on LAX to LIH earns an A+. Nearly every flight arrives inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 17 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 45 minutes. That rests on 377 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 365 at 82.0% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, United's LAX to LIH record is 17 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 174 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
94.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 374 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.80%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
82.9%
Every carrier on LAX to LIH, 1,605 flights
These figures cover 377 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 16 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 LIH
United flew 377 of the 1,605 flights on LAX to LIH, about 23% of it. Its 94.7% on time is 12 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 82.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two 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. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 82.0% 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 (this page) | 377 | 94.7% | 44 min | 0.80% | A+ |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 122 | 89.3% | 40 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 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+ |
Delta leads American by 7 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
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 377 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am296 flights94.9%
- 11am–2pm19 flights—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm62 flights91.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 85% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8am–11am window is the strongest at 94.9% on time. The full set of windows spans 3 points.
Across the year
United on LAX to LIH through the year
- Jul–Sep 202525 flights—
- Oct–Dec 2025103 flights95.1%
- Jan–Mar 202641 flights92.7%
- Apr–Jun 2026102 flights94.1%
- Jul–Sep 2026106 flights97.1%
Scale runs 85% 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 94.7% on time across 377 flights.
Quarter by quarter United on LAX to LIH held fairly steady: 95.1% in Oct–Dec 2025, 92.7% in Jan–Mar 2026, 94.1% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 97.1% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 4 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 Monday the weakest at 90.9%, a spread of 9 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on LAX to LIH runs when it is late
United on LAX to LIH often beats the schedule: 191 of 374 completed flights, 51%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 20 late arrivals split 8 under half an hour, 6 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 6 an hour or more. Not one arrived two hours late.
- 15+ min early191 flights51.1%
- Within 15 min163 flights43.6%
- 15–29 min late8 flights2.1%
- 30–59 min late6 flights1.6%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.6%
- 2+ hours late0 flights0.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 374 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 24 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 9 still arrived on time. Only 5 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on LAX to LIH
The latest arrival of the period was on 31 December 2025, 1 hour 57 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 31 December 2025 | 1 hour 57 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 May 2026 | 1 hour 48 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 12 March 2026 | 1 hour 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 September 2025 | 1 hour 6 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 September 2025 | 1 hour 3 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 55% of the 883 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 55%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 483 of the 883 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 883 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.80%, 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 1.6% 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 2,615 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 90.9% on time across 377 flights, 4 points below 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 377 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. 377 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 94.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 374 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to LIH, every carrier
- United on LIH to LAX, the return leg
- Hawaiian Airlines on LAX to LIH89.3%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to LIH82.0%
- Alaska Airlines on LAX to LIH76.5%
- American Airlines on LAX to LIH75.1%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
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.