Carrier route record
AALIH→LAX
American Airlines · Lihue to Los Angeles
- 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 LIH to LAX earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 391 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 365 at 91.3% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, American's LIH to LAX record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 68 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 391 completed flights
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
83.2%
Every carrier on LIH to LAX, 1,539 flights
These figures cover 391 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 LIH to LAX
American flew 391 of the 1,539 flights on LIH to LAX, about 25% of it. Its 84.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 83.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 91.3% to Hawaiian at 66.3%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 365 | 91.3% | 65 min | 2.19% | A |
| United Airlines | 379 | 90.7% | 57 min | 0.26% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 87.0% | 65 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 391 | 84.4% | 92 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 197 | 67.0% | 45 min | 1.02% | C |
| Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample | 184 | 66.3% | 39 min | 0.00% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 91.3%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on LIH to LAX
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–11am—
- 11am–2pm160 flights85.0%
- 2pm–5pm99 flights78.8%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am132 flights87.9%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is the strongest at 87.9% on time. The full set of windows spans 9 points.
Across the year
American on LIH to LAX through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 93.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. June was the busiest month here, with 60 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 96.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 72.4%. 24 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 57% of the 5,604 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.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
57% 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 5,604 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 57 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 5,604 reported delay minutes.
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 4.6% 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 77.6% on time across 391 flights, 7 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 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 LIH to LAX
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 84.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 391 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LIH to LAX, every carrier
- American on LAX to LIH, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on LIH to LAX91.3%
- United Airlines on LIH to LAX90.7%
- Alaska Airlines on LIH to LAX67.0%
- Hawaiian Airlines on LIH to LAX66.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.