Carrier performance at one airport
WN→PIT
Southwest Airlines at Pittsburgh International
- Departures
- 10,332
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Routes
- 18
- Rank here
- #4 of 12
Southwest Airlines at Pittsburgh lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 10,332 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 3,309 at 88.0% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Southwest Airlines runs about a point behind the 81.5% weighted average across all carriers at PIT. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
80.6%
10,232 completed departures
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
0.69%
At PIT, this carrier only
Rank here
#4
Of 12 carriers clearing the floor at PIT
These figures cover 10,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 PIT, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 88.0% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 67.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 713 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 3,309 | 88.0% | 66 min | 1.99% | A |
| Republic Airways | 11,605 | 84.1% | 66 min | 2.90% | B |
| United Airlines | 4,060 | 82.8% | 78 min | 0.94% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 10,332 | 80.6% | 59 min | 0.69% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 5,891 | 79.7% | 101 min | 1.68% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,219 | 79.6% | 75 min | 3.69% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,702 | 79.5% | 86 min | 3.76% | B− |
| Allegiant Air | 1,634 | 79.5% | 97 min | 0.86% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,219 | 74.7% | 111 min | 1.80% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 471 | 71.1% | 55 min | 1.27% | C |
| Envoy Air | 469 | 69.7% | 67 min | 2.77% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 713 | 67.3% | 86 min | 6.31% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 6.3% 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 PIT
Southwest Airlines operates 18 routes out of PIT 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PIT to MCO · Orlando | 1,592 | 79.8% | 65 min | 0.63% | B+ |
| PIT to MDW · Chicago | 1,134 | 78.8% | 61 min | 0.97% | B+ |
| PIT to BWI · Baltimore | 1,075 | 85.5% | 60 min | 1.30% | A |
| PIT to BNA · Nashville | 1,012 | 83.6% | 56 min | 0.59% | B+ |
| PIT to TPA · Tampa | 793 | 79.7% | 72 min | 0.13% | B+ |
| PIT to DEN · Denver | 766 | 75.9% | 61 min | 0.78% | B+ |
| PIT to LAS · Las Vegas | 655 | 82.7% | 51 min | 0.46% | B+ |
| PIT to RSW · Fort Myers | 488 | 79.5% | 55 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| PIT to STL · St. Louis | 476 | 82.1% | 51 min | 0.21% | B+ |
| PIT to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 395 | 79.3% | 54 min | 1.01% | B |
| PIT to PHX · Phoenix | 373 | 72.8% | 55 min | 0.54% | C+ |
| PIT to DAL · Dallas | 365 | 79.6% | 46 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| PIT to HOU · Houstonthin sample | 317 | 77.8% | 51 min | 0.32% | B+ |
| PIT to ATL · Atlantathin sample | 302 | 86.7% | 38 min | 0.33% | A+ |
| PIT to AUS · Austinthin sample | 300 | 83.9% | 41 min | 0.33% | B+ |
| PIT to SRQ · Sarasotathin sample | 179 | 81.4% | 85 min | 1.12% | B |
| PIT to MIA · Miamithin sample | 47 | 76.1% | 44 min | 2.13% | B |
| PIT to MYR · Myrtle Beachthin sample | 38 | 78.9% | 53 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 32 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am2,993 flights93.1%
- 8am–11am1,147 flights91.3%
- 11am–2pm1,827 flights83.1%
- 2pm–5pm1,582 flights73.7%
- 5pm–8pm2,024 flights66.0%
- 8pm–5am759 flights61.5%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.5% on time, against 93.1% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 2,993 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
December is the weak month at 72.9% on time, against 87.7% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 950 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 2%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 117,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 24 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 116,853 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.69%, 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.
5.7% 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 about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
The sample behind these figures is 10,332 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 87.7% on time and December 72.9%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 10,232 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Southwest Airlines at PIT
How often is Southwest Airlines at PIT delayed?
About 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 19.4% of the 10,332 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Southwest Airlines at PIT?
Delta Air Lines leads at 88.0% on time across 3,309 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 67.3%, a gap of 21 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 PIT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 61.5%, 32 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 December delays on Southwest Airlines at PIT?
December is the weakest month at 72.9% on time, compared with 87.7% in September. Across the year that is 15 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.