Carrier performance at one airport
WN→LAX
Southwest Airlines at Los Angeles International
- Departures
- 25,180
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #7 of 11
Southwest Airlines at Los Angeles lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 25,180 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 40,411 at 85.5% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Southwest Airlines runs 4 points behind the 80.5% 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
76.8%
25,007 completed departures
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
0.52%
At LAX, this carrier only
Rank here
#7
Of 11 carriers clearing the floor at LAX
These figures cover 25,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 70.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,175 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 40,411 | 85.5% | 73 min | 0.64% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 28,958 | 83.2% | 64 min | 0.59% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 8,948 | 82.4% | 55 min | 1.03% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 37,232 | 81.3% | 68 min | 1.08% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 4,592 | 79.4% | 75 min | 2.09% | B |
| Allegiant Air | 372 | 77.1% | 105 min | 0.27% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 25,180 | 76.8% | 49 min | 0.52% | B+ |
| JetBlue Airways | 7,717 | 76.4% | 73 min | 1.72% | B |
| American Airlines | 29,641 | 76.3% | 87 min | 1.31% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 5,434 | 70.3% | 83 min | 1.77% | C |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 1,175 | 70.0% | 71 min | 0.77% | C+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Hawaiian is 16 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 16 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Route by route
Where Southwest Airlines flies from LAX
Southwest 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 LAS · Las Vegas | 2,399 | 73.8% | 54 min | 0.54% | C+ |
| LAX to OAK · Oakland | 2,120 | 81.7% | 49 min | 0.61% | B+ |
| LAX to PHX · Phoenix | 2,032 | 76.4% | 49 min | 1.03% | B |
| LAX to DEN · Denver | 1,931 | 75.5% | 53 min | 0.41% | B+ |
| LAX to SJC · San Jose | 1,806 | 83.3% | 48 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| LAX to SMF · Sacramento | 1,603 | 80.5% | 51 min | 0.19% | B+ |
| LAX to DAL · Dallas | 1,471 | 71.4% | 45 min | 0.75% | C+ |
| LAX to MDW · Chicago | 1,355 | 80.1% | 46 min | 0.52% | B+ |
| LAX to SFO · San Francisco | 1,325 | 62.6% | 60 min | 0.30% | D+ |
| LAX to HOU · Houston | 1,193 | 75.0% | 39 min | 0.25% | B+ |
| LAX to BWI · Baltimore | 1,042 | 80.8% | 41 min | 0.77% | B+ |
| LAX to AUS · Austin | 1,013 | 70.9% | 50 min | 0.49% | C+ |
| LAX to BNA · Nashville | 907 | 81.1% | 41 min | 0.88% | B+ |
| LAX to STL · St. Louis | 676 | 77.8% | 49 min | 0.44% | B+ |
| LAX to HNL · Honolulu | 513 | 84.8% | 51 min | 0.19% | B+ |
| LAX to ELP · El Paso | 483 | 78.0% | 52 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| LAX to MCI · Kansas City | 465 | 78.9% | 48 min | 1.08% | B |
| LAX to ABQ · Albuquerque | 463 | 84.8% | 41 min | 0.22% | B+ |
| LAX to TUS · Tucson | 454 | 71.3% | 49 min | 0.22% | C+ |
| LAX to SLC · Salt Lake City | 374 | 84.4% | 48 min | 0.53% | B+ |
| LAX to MSY · New Orleans | 366 | 71.9% | 41 min | 0.27% | C+ |
| LAX to RNO · Renothin sample | 358 | 72.0% | 46 min | 1.12% | C |
| LAX to SAT · San Antoniothin sample | 337 | 72.1% | 37 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| LAX to MCO · Orlandothin sample | 300 | 77.7% | 33 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| LAX to TPA · Tampathin sample | 113 | 65.2% | 36 min | 0.00% | 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 31 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am5,517 flights93.8%
- 8am–11am4,737 flights83.1%
- 11am–2pm4,084 flights72.0%
- 2pm–5pm3,700 flights68.2%
- 5pm–8pm3,513 flights63.1%
- 8pm–5am3,629 flights70.5%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.1% on time, against 93.8% 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.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
Delays peak in May, when the on-time rate falls to 66.3%. January is the strongest month at 83.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 17 points.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% 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 283,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 51 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.
Cancellations are rare at 0.52%, below the national 1.80% 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.
5.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. 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.
25,180 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 83.2% on time and May 66.3%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else.
Common questions
Southwest Airlines at LAX
How often is Southwest 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 23.2% of the 25,180 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Southwest Airlines at LAX?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 85.5% on time across 40,411 flights. Hawaiian Airlines is at the other end on 70.0%, a gap of 16 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 LAX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 63.1%, 31 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 May delays on Southwest Airlines at LAX?
May is the weakest month at 66.3% on time, compared with 83.2% in January. Across the year that is 17 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
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.