Carrier route record
UASFO→KOA
United Airlines · San Francisco to Kailua-Kona
- Flights
- 958
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 80%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on SFO to KOA 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 8 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 50 minutes. That rests on 958 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's SFO to KOA record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 84 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 951 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.52%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
86.9%
Every carrier on SFO to KOA, 1,202 flights
These figures cover 958 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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
United against every carrier on SFO to KOA
United flew 958 of the 1,202 flights on SFO to KOA, most of the route. Its 85.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 86.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 91.4% to United at 85.7%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 244 | 91.4% | 63 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 958 | 85.7% | 50 min | 0.52% | A+ |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on SFO to KOA
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When United 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 958 flights.
- 5am–8am20 flights—
- 8am–11am531 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.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 87.9% on time for the 8am–11am window against 81.3% for 5pm–8pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 531 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on SFO to KOA through the year
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 75.5%. January is the strongest month at 94.4%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 19 points. July was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 89.2% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 81.7%, a spread of 8 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on SFO to KOA runs when it is late
United on SFO to KOA often beats the schedule: 333 of 951 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 136 late arrivals split 61 under half an hour, 40 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 35 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early333 flights35.0%
- Within 15 min482 flights50.7%
- 15–29 min late61 flights6.4%
- 30–59 min late40 flights4.2%
- 1–2 hours late27 flights2.8%
- 2+ hours late8 flights0.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 951 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 152 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 57 still arrived on time. 41 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on SFO to KOA
The latest arrival of the period was on 1 August 2026, 5 hours 55 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 1 August 2026 | 5 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 September 2025 | 4 hours 9 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 15 December 2025 | 3 hours 49 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 September 2025 | 3 hours 11 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 4 June 2026 | 3 hours 10 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 6,735 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,735 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 50 to one. The split is drawn from 6,735 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.9% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.52%, 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 costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.7% 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 88.1% on time across 958 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 958 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 SFO to KOA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 958 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 85.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 951 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.