Carrier route record
ASSFO→LIH
Alaska Airlines · San Francisco to Lihue
- Flights
- 233
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 25%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on SFO to LIH 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 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 233 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Alaska's SFO to LIH record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 127 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 231 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.43%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
88.3%
Every carrier on SFO to LIH, 922 flights
These figures cover 233 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 13 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
Alaska against every carrier on SFO to LIH
Alaska flew 233 of the 922 flights on SFO to LIH, about 25% of it. Its 90.0% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 88.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 90.0% to United at 87.7%.
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 Airlines (this page)thin sample | 233 | 90.0% | 47 min | 0.43% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 689 | 87.7% | 50 min | 0.58% | A+ |
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Departure window
When Alaska 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 233 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Alaska's SFO to LIH record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 90.0% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
Alaska on SFO to LIH through the year
- Jul–Sep 202513 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202546 flights93.3%
- Jan–Mar 202651 flights78.4%
- Apr–Jun 202661 flights90.2%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights95.1%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 90.0% on time across 233 flights.
Alaska on SFO to LIH did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 95.1% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 78.4%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 58 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 100.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 80.5%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Alaska on SFO to LIH runs when it is late
Alaska on SFO to LIH often beats the schedule: 107 of 231 completed flights, 46%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 14 of the 23 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 4 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early107 flights46.3%
- Within 15 min101 flights43.7%
- 15–29 min late14 flights6.1%
- 30–59 min late5 flights2.2%
- 1–2 hours late0 flights0.0%
- 2+ hours late4 flights1.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 231 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Only 12 of 231 completed flights left 15 minutes late or more, too few to say how often the time is made up.
The worst days
Worst days for Alaska on SFO to LIH
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 June 2026, 3 hours 20 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 20 June 2026 | 3 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 July 2026 | 2 hours 51 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 August 2026 | 2 hours 39 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 August 2026 | 2 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 March 2026 | 33 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Alaska runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 63% of the 1,091 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 63%Carrier
- 30%National Airspace System
- 6%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 63%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 691 of the 1,091 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,091 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.43%, 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 1.7% 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 2,446 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 71.0% on time across 234 flights, 19 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 19 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 233 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 Alaska on SFO to LIH
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 233 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 90.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 231 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to LIH, every carrier
- Alaska on LIH to SFO, the return leg
- United Airlines on SFO to LIH87.7%
- Alaska Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.