Carrier performance at one airport
AA→LAX
American Airlines at Los Angeles International
- Departures
- 29,744
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #7 of 10
American Airlines at Los Angeles lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 29,744 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 40,551 at 85.5% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, American Airlines runs 4 points behind the 80.4% weighted average across all carriers at LAX. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
76.3%
29,212 completed departures
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.36%
At LAX, this carrier only
Rank here
#7
Of 10 carriers clearing the floor at LAX
These figures cover 30,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Against the competition
Every carrier at LAX, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 85.5% of the time; Hawaiian Airlines manages 71.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 987 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 40,551 | 85.5% | 72 min | 0.64% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 29,181 | 83.1% | 64 min | 0.58% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 9,294 | 81.8% | 55 min | 0.90% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 37,285 | 81.6% | 68 min | 1.06% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 3,950 | 79.2% | 74 min | 2.25% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 7,698 | 77.0% | 71 min | 1.82% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 29,744 | 76.3% | 89 min | 1.36% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 25,308 | 74.8% | 49 min | 0.55% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 5,505 | 71.9% | 82 min | 1.69% | C |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 987 | 71.1% | 74 min | 0.91% | C+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Hawaiian is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Route by route
Where American Airlines flies from LAX
American Airlines operates 25 routes out of LAX with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LAX to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 4,563 | 72.7% | 93 min | 2.52% | C |
| LAX to JFK · New York | 3,242 | 76.7% | 112 min | 2.19% | B |
| LAX to ORD · Chicago | 3,051 | 72.9% | 96 min | 2.33% | C |
| LAX to MIA · Miami | 2,753 | 79.2% | 73 min | 0.58% | B+ |
| LAX to PHL · Philadelphia | 2,322 | 79.8% | 80 min | 1.59% | B |
| LAX to CLT · Charlotte | 2,304 | 83.2% | 87 min | 1.04% | B |
| LAX to PHX · Phoenix | 2,026 | 79.1% | 91 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| LAX to HNL · Honolulu | 1,183 | 76.7% | 57 min | 0.17% | B+ |
| LAX to BOS · Boston | 1,146 | 76.5% | 91 min | 1.31% | B |
| LAX to LAS · Las Vegas | 1,064 | 68.5% | 87 min | 0.85% | C+ |
| LAX to MCO · Orlando | 735 | 73.3% | 76 min | 0.27% | C+ |
| LAX to DCA · Washington | 730 | 82.0% | 66 min | 1.10% | B |
| LAX to OGG · Kahului | 580 | 81.3% | 77 min | 0.17% | B+ |
| LAX to AUS · Austin | 480 | 68.7% | 95 min | 1.04% | C |
| LAX to IND · Indianapolis | 466 | 74.0% | 101 min | 0.64% | C+ |
| LAX to RDU · Raleigh | 419 | 75.7% | 123 min | 0.72% | B+ |
| LAX to BNA · Nashville | 414 | 75.6% | 113 min | 0.72% | B+ |
| LAX to LIH · Lihue | 391 | 77.6% | 48 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| LAX to ATL · Atlanta | 379 | 66.8% | 85 min | 0.53% | C+ |
| LAX to KOA · Kailua-Konathin sample | 350 | 76.9% | 61 min | 0.29% | B+ |
| LAX to SFO · San Franciscothin sample | 343 | 61.3% | 74 min | 0.29% | D+ |
| LAX to CMH · Columbusthin sample | 306 | 79.7% | 92 min | 1.63% | B |
| LAX to PIT · Pittsburghthin sample | 301 | 77.3% | 90 min | 0.33% | B+ |
| LAX to CLE · Clevelandthin sample | 85 | 88.0% | 65 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| LAX to IAD · Washingtonthin sample | 85 | 77.6% | 79 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 19 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am3,898 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am8,277 flights76.3%
- 11am–2pm4,932 flights69.7%
- 2pm–5pm3,810 flights69.1%
- 5pm–8pm2,841 flights70.5%
- 8pm–5am5,986 flights80.9%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.5% of the time, against 69.1% for the afternoon window. That is 19 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 8,277 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
July is the worst month at 69.7% on time, 12 points below October, the best at 81.6%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 2,766 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% 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 615,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 49 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 615,210 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.36% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.43%.
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
29,744 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
Put together: take the 5am–8am departure, avoid July if the dates are flexible, and if two carriers are within a few dollars of each other, SkyWest is the one with the record behind it. None of that guarantees an on-time arrival; it moves the odds by 19 points, which is the most any booking decision can do. 29,212 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
American Airlines at LAX
How often is American Airlines at LAX delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.7% of the 29,744 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on American Airlines at LAX?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 85.5% on time across 40,551 flights. Hawaiian Airlines is at the other end on 71.1%, a gap of 14 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on American Airlines at LAX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 69.1%, 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 July delays on American Airlines at LAX?
July is the weakest month at 69.7% on time, compared with 81.6% in October. Across the year that is 12 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
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) all carriers
- LAX to DFW route record72.7%
- LAX to JFK route record76.7%
- LAX to ORD route record72.9%
- LAX to MIA route record79.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.