Route reliability record
LIH→SFO
Lihue to San Francisco
- Flights
- 853
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,446 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 853 LIH to SFO flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly LIH to SFO: a 8pm–5am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 92.7%, against 86.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 88 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 846 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
90.9% on time across 655 flights
These figures cover 853 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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
Which airline is most reliable on LIH to SFO
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 655 | 90.9% | 67 min | 0.61% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 198 | 71.3% | 54 min | 1.52% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on LIH to SFO
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.
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 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm241 flights92.1%
- 2pm–5pm381 flights77.6%
- 5pm–8pm8 flights—
- 8pm–5am223 flights96.4%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 96.4% on time across 223 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 381 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
December is the weak month at 76.9% on time, against 96.2% in July. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. June was the busiest month here, with 116 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 92.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 79.2%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 6,969 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
46% 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 6,969 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 46 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 6,969 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 2,407 of the 6,969 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, below the national 1.81% 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 actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.2% 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 2,446 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 89.6% on time across 852 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 853 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SFO after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 853 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 86.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 846 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LIH to SFO questions
How often is LIH to SFO delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.6% of the 853 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is LIH to SFO compared with the rest of the country?
86.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LIH to SFO?
The 8pm–5am departure window is the strongest at 96.4% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 77.6%, 19 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 December delays on LIH to SFO?
December is the weakest month at 76.9% on time, compared with 96.2% in July. Across the year that is 19 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
- SFO to LIH — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- United Airlines on LIH to SFO90.9%
- Alaska Airlines on LIH to SFO71.3%
- LIH to HNL, a related route84.2%
- LAX to SFO, a related route64.8%
- LIH to LAX, a related route83.2%
- United Airlines on-time record90.9%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record71.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. LIH to SFO and SFO to LIH are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed LIH to SFO’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.