Route reliability record
SFO→KOA
San Francisco to Kailua-Kona
- Flights
- 1,202
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,368 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 10 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 50 minutes. That rests on 1,202 SFO to KOA flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly SFO to KOA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 90.4%, against 86.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 96 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,194 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.42%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
85.7% on time across 958 flights
These figures cover 1,202 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 SFO to KOA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 244 | 91.4% | 63 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 958 | 85.7% | 50 min | 0.52% | A+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on SFO to KOA
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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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 10 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am263 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am532 flights87.9%
- 11am–2pm45 flights86.4%
- 2pm–5pm28 flights—
- 5pm–8pm334 flights81.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.6% of the time, against 81.3% for the evening window. That is 10 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 532 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SFO to KOA 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 SFO to KOA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 81.3%, a wide gap of 10.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.6%
- 8–11am87.9%
- 11am–2pm86.4%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm81.3%
- 8pm–5am—
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 13 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 October, when the on-time rate falls to 80.0%. January is the strongest month at 93.3%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 13 points. July was the busiest month here, with 155 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 90.4% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 83.3%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 8,056 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,056 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 42 to one. The split is drawn from 8,056 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,110 of the 8,056 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.42%, 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 actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.6% 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 2,368 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 84.6% on time across 1,202 flights, within 2 points 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 1,202 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 KOA 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. January runs 93.3% on time and October 80.0%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of October before you think about anything else. 1,194 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SFO to KOA questions
How often is SFO to KOA delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.1% of the 1,202 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is SFO to KOA compared with the rest of the country?
86.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 10 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SFO to KOA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 81.3%, 10 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 October delays on SFO to KOA?
October is the weakest month at 80.0% on time, compared with 93.3% in January. Across the year that is 13 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
- KOA to SFO — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on SFO to KOA91.4%
- United Airlines on SFO to KOA85.7%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- HNL to KOA, a related route85.3%
- SFO to SEA, a related route72.3%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record91.4%
- United Airlines on-time record85.7%
- 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. SFO to KOA and KOA to SFO 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.