Route reliability record
LIH→LAX
Lihue to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 1,605
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,615 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route lands a B+, 6 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 about an hour on average. That rests on 1,605 LIH to LAX flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 365 at 91.0% on time.
Best time to fly LIH to LAX: a 8pm–5am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 90.1%, against 83.7% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 91.0% on time across 365 flights.
Key figures
On time
83.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,587 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.93%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
91.0% on time across 365 flights
These figures cover 1,605 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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
Which airline is most reliable on LIH to LAX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 91.0% of the time; American Airlines manages 84.7%. 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 | 91.3% | 28 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 365 | 91.0% | 67 min | 1.92% | A |
| United Airlines | 377 | 90.9% | 51 min | 0.80% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 446 | 84.7% | 110 min | 0.67% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 272 | 69.9% | 52 min | 0.74% | C+ |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 122 | 65.6% | 41 min | 0.00% | C+ |
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
Flights on LIH to LAX
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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Lihue to Los Angeles
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. LIH → LAXLihue to Los Angeles | United Airlines | 90.2% | 90.9% | 0.80% | 8pm–5am, Tue | UA 1296 13:01 |
| 2. LIH → LAXLihue to Los Angeles | Delta Air Lines | 89.3% | 91.0% | 1.92% | 8pm–5am, Wed | DL 435 22:55 |
| 3. LIH → LAXLihue to Los Angeles | American Airlines | 84.1% | 84.7% | 0.67% | 8pm–5am, Tue | AA 266 14:12 |
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 18 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm632 flights81.7%
- 2pm–5pm311 flights73.1%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am662 flights90.6%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 90.6% on time across 662 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 662 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LIH to LAX by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On LIH to LAX, the best departure window is 8pm–5am at 90.6% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 73.1%, a wide gap of 17.5 points. All US flights leaving 8pm–5am ran 70.1%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm81.7%
- 2–5pm73.1%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am90.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 70.5%. July is the strongest month at 90.5%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 20 points. July was the busiest month here, with 201 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 76.9%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 47% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Carrier
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 to one. The split is drawn from 17,271 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,155 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.93% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.2% 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 runs 82.9% on time across 1,605 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 1,605 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 LAX 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. July runs 90.5% on time and March 70.5%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,587 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LIH to LAX questions
How often is LIH to LAX 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 16.3% of the 1,605 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LIH to LAX?
Delta Air Lines leads at 91.0% on time across 365 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 84.7%, a gap of 6 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 LIH to LAX?
The 8pm–5am departure window is the strongest at 90.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 73.1%, 18 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 March delays on LIH to LAX?
March is the weakest month at 70.5% on time, compared with 90.5% in July. Across the year that is 20 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
- LAX to LIH — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on LIH to LAX91.0%
- United Airlines on LIH to LAX90.9%
- American Airlines on LIH to LAX84.7%
- Alaska Airlines on LIH to LAX69.9%
- Hawaiian Airlines on LIH to LAX65.6%
- LIH to HNL, a related route84.1%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- LIH to OGG, a related route81.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record91.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record91.0%
- United Airlines on-time record90.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. LIH to LAX and LAX to LIH 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.