Carrier performance at one airport
WN→AUS
Southwest Airlines at Austin-Bergstrom International
- Departures
- 38,225
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #7 of 11
Southwest Airlines at Austin sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 38,225 flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 2,047 at 82.9% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Southwest Airlines runs 3 points behind the 76.6% weighted average across all carriers at AUS. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
73.7%
37,924 completed departures
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
0.60%
At AUS, this carrier only
Rank here
#7
Of 11 carriers clearing the floor at AUS
These figures cover 38,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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 AUS, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Alaska Airlines arrives on time 82.9% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 63.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 994 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 2,047 | 82.9% | 54 min | 0.98% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 13,055 | 82.3% | 81 min | 1.42% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 8,035 | 80.5% | 86 min | 0.86% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 10,844 | 79.7% | 74 min | 1.18% | B |
| Envoy Air | 830 | 77.0% | 96 min | 3.49% | B− |
| American Airlines | 11,691 | 76.2% | 116 min | 2.58% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 38,225 | 73.7% | 52 min | 0.60% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,886 | 72.9% | 85 min | 2.01% | C |
| Allegiant Air | 638 | 67.7% | 78 min | 0.31% | C+ |
| JetBlue Airways | 733 | 65.0% | 81 min | 1.23% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 994 | 63.2% | 81 min | 5.43% | D− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 5.4% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Where Southwest Airlines flies from AUS
Southwest Airlines operates 25 routes out of AUS 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AUS to DEN · Denver | 2,356 | 72.7% | 56 min | 0.59% | C+ |
| AUS to DAL · Dallas | 2,333 | 77.8% | 60 min | 1.71% | B |
| AUS to LAS · Las Vegas | 2,177 | 75.1% | 49 min | 0.32% | B+ |
| AUS to BNA · Nashville | 2,004 | 76.0% | 49 min | 0.70% | B+ |
| AUS to PHX · Phoenix | 1,995 | 77.2% | 53 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| AUS to MCO · Orlando | 1,885 | 71.1% | 57 min | 0.95% | C+ |
| AUS to MSY · New Orleans | 1,526 | 75.8% | 52 min | 0.46% | B+ |
| AUS to SAN · San Diego | 1,422 | 70.4% | 54 min | 0.63% | C+ |
| AUS to HOU · Houston | 1,399 | 69.0% | 51 min | 0.21% | C+ |
| AUS to MDW · Chicago | 1,352 | 77.5% | 53 min | 1.26% | B |
| AUS to BWI · Baltimore | 1,286 | 76.4% | 51 min | 1.48% | B |
| AUS to TPA · Tampa | 1,153 | 73.3% | 58 min | 0.35% | C+ |
| AUS to SJC · San Jose | 1,141 | 74.3% | 49 min | 0.18% | C+ |
| AUS to ATL · Atlanta | 1,036 | 78.8% | 53 min | 0.68% | B+ |
| AUS to ELP · El Paso | 1,025 | 75.8% | 49 min | 0.20% | B+ |
| AUS to LAX · Los Angeles | 1,025 | 75.0% | 52 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| AUS to STL · St. Louis | 977 | 77.3% | 52 min | 0.10% | B+ |
| AUS to MCI · Kansas City | 865 | 73.4% | 52 min | 0.35% | C+ |
| AUS to ABQ · Albuquerque | 830 | 74.6% | 52 min | 0.24% | C+ |
| AUS to IND · Indianapolis | 713 | 75.4% | 53 min | 0.56% | B+ |
| AUS to HRL · Harlingen | 677 | 73.7% | 62 min | 0.15% | C+ |
| AUS to RDU · Raleigh | 516 | 73.3% | 50 min | 0.39% | C+ |
| AUS to SLC · Salt Lake City | 470 | 70.6% | 58 min | 0.21% | C+ |
| AUS to LGB · Long Beach | 451 | 71.4% | 45 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| AUS to SMF · Sacramento | 416 | 72.0% | 50 min | 0.24% | C+ |
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 35 points, against 20 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am5,222 flights95.1%
- 8am–11am5,927 flights88.4%
- 11am–2pm7,205 flights77.5%
- 2pm–5pm8,343 flights64.8%
- 5pm–8pm6,870 flights60.4%
- 8pm–5am4,658 flights60.7%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.4% on time, against 95.1% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 8,343 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
June is the worst month at 59.8% on time, 25 points below January, the best at 85.1%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 3,460 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
56% 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 522,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 28 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 522,202 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.60%, below the national 1.81% 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.
7.3% 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 roughly 50 minutes kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
38,225 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: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 85.1% on time and June 59.8%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 37,924 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Southwest Airlines at AUS
How often is Southwest Airlines at AUS 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 26.3% of the 38,225 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Southwest Airlines at AUS?
Alaska Airlines leads at 82.9% on time across 2,047 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 63.2%, a gap of 20 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 Southwest Airlines at AUS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.4%, 35 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 June delays on Southwest Airlines at AUS?
June is the weakest month at 59.8% on time, compared with 85.1% in January. Across the year that is 25 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
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) all carriers
- AUS to DEN route record72.7%
- AUS to DAL route record77.8%
- AUS to LAS route record75.1%
- AUS to BNA route record76.0%
- 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.