Carrier route record
UALIH→SFO
United Airlines · Lihue to San Francisco
- Flights
- 655
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 77%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on LIH to SFO 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 13 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 655 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's LIH to SFO record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 133 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 651 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.61%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
86.4%
Every carrier on LIH to SFO, 853 flights
These figures cover 655 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 LIH to SFO
United flew 655 of the 853 flights on LIH to SFO, most of the route. Its 90.9% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 86.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 90.9% to Alaska at 71.3%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 655 | 90.9% | 67 min | 0.61% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 198 | 71.3% | 54 min | 1.52% | C |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on LIH to SFO
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 13 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–2pm239 flights92.0%
- 2pm–5pm193 flights83.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am223 flights96.4%
Scale runs 75% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 239 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on LIH to SFO through the year
January is the weak month at 79.5% on time, against 98.5% 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 90 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 94.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 87.6%. 7 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 3,925 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%Carrier
- 29%National Airspace System
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
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 1,816 of the 3,925 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,925 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.61%, 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 costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 1.7% 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 runs 89.6% on time across 655 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 655 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 LIH to SFO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 655 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 90.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 651 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
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.