Carrier performance at one airport

DL→LAX

Delta Air Lines at Los Angeles International

Departures: 37,285
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Routes: 25
Rank here: #4 of 10

Delta Air Lines at Los Angeles lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 37,285 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 40,551 at 85.5% on time.

Measured against the airport rather than the country, Delta Air Lines runs about a point ahead of 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.

On time

81.6%

36,795 completed departures

Avg delay

68 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

1.06%

At LAX, this carrier only

Rank here

Of 10 carriers clearing the floor at LAX

These figures cover 37,000 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

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.

On-time performance of all carriers departing LAX
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 (this page)	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	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 Delta Air Lines flies from LAX

Delta Air Lines 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.

Delta Air Lines routes from LAX
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
LAX to ATL · Atlanta	3,844	81.5%	64 min	0.86%	B+
LAX to JFK · New York	3,358	81.6%	93 min	1.79%	B
LAX to SLC · Salt Lake City	2,451	88.5%	79 min	0.41%	A+
LAX to SFO · San Francisco	2,373	65.2%	55 min	1.52%	C
LAX to SEA · Seattle	2,224	86.8%	76 min	0.76%	A+
LAX to MSP · Minneapolis	2,156	86.2%	57 min	0.79%	A+
LAX to DTW · Detroit	1,979	83.6%	62 min	0.76%	B+
LAX to LAS · Las Vegas	1,735	78.5%	59 min	0.81%	B+
LAX to PDX · Portland	1,690	86.2%	74 min	0.89%	A+
LAX to MCO · Orlando	1,383	76.3%	63 min	1.16%	B
LAX to AUS · Austin	1,285	81.5%	73 min	1.09%	B
LAX to BOS · Boston	1,230	78.6%	86 min	1.71%	B
LAX to HNL · Honolulu	1,095	80.7%	75 min	0.37%	B+
LAX to MSY · New Orleans	959	81.8%	67 min	0.42%	B+
LAX to BNA · Nashville	909	85.8%	62 min	1.54%	A
LAX to DEN · Denver	744	79.7%	85 min	1.48%	B
LAX to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	718	83.6%	80 min	1.81%	B
LAX to SAT · San Antonio	684	84.1%	77 min	0.44%	B+
LAX to TPA · Tampa	659	78.6%	57 min	1.52%	B
LAX to IAH · Houston	645	86.1%	73 min	1.09%	A
LAX to MCI · Kansas City	619	88.5%	76 min	0.97%	A+
LAX to OGG · Kahului	507	84.7%	71 min	0.79%	B+
LAX to MIA · Miami	495	73.7%	54 min	1.21%	C
LAX to SJC · San Jose	455	86.4%	61 min	2.86%	A
LAX to RDU · Raleigh	382	81.7%	49 min	0.79%	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 12 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am6,124 flights90.5%
8am–11am8,632 flights82.5%
11am–2pm5,868 flights79.1%
2pm–5pm5,334 flights78.2%
5pm–8pm4,888 flights79.3%
8pm–5am6,439 flights79.0%

Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.5% of the time, against 78.2% for the afternoon window. That is 12 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 8,632 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Seasonal pattern

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, March worst

September is the best month on the calendar at 87.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 3,378 flights.

Delay causes

What holds this operation up

Carrier
56%
Late-arriving aircraft
24%
National Airspace System
19%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, 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 258,000 of the 462,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 462,190 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.06% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.25%.

6.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

37,285 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 March 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 14 points, which is the most any booking decision can do. 36,795 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

Delta Air Lines at LAX

How often is Delta Air Lines at LAX delayed?

Roughly one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.4% of the 37,285 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on Delta Air Lines 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 Delta Air Lines at LAX?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 78.2%, 12 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 March delays on Delta Air Lines at LAX?

March is the weakest month at 78.1% on time, compared with 87.5% in September. Across the year that is 9 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures