Carrier performance at one airport

UA→LAX

United Airlines at Los Angeles International

Departures: 28,958
Period: June 2025 to May 2026
Routes: 25
Rank here: #2 of 11

United Airlines at Los Angeles lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in six 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 28,958 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 40,411 at 85.5% on time.

Measured against the airport rather than the country, United Airlines runs 3 points ahead of 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.

On time

83.2%

28,683 completed departures

Avg delay

64 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

0.59%

At LAX, this carrier only

Rank here

Of 11 carriers clearing the floor at LAX

These figures cover 29,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.

On-time performance of all carriers departing LAX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	40,411	85.5%	73 min	0.64%	A+
United Airlines (this page)	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	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 United Airlines flies from LAX

United 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.

United Airlines routes from LAX
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
LAX to EWR · Newark	3,530	78.3%	79 min	2.04%	B
LAX to IAH · Houston	3,394	86.7%	57 min	0.35%	A+
LAX to ORD · Chicago	3,394	80.9%	64 min	0.74%	B+
LAX to SFO · San Francisco	3,250	68.7%	56 min	0.22%	C+
LAX to DEN · Denver	3,062	86.5%	65 min	0.10%	A+
LAX to IAD · Washington	2,294	86.3%	59 min	0.65%	A+
LAX to LAS · Las Vegas	1,560	84.0%	59 min	0.51%	B+
LAX to HNL · Honolulu	1,259	85.3%	102 min	0.40%	A+
LAX to MCO · Orlando	835	88.3%	63 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to BOS · Boston	716	85.9%	67 min	1.12%	A
LAX to CLE · Cleveland	646	91.6%	55 min	0.15%	A+
LAX to OGG · Kahului	575	90.7%	43 min	0.52%	A+
LAX to BWI · Baltimore	570	91.2%	55 min	0.35%	A+
LAX to KOA · Kailua-Kona	494	88.7%	43 min	0.81%	A+
LAX to AUS · Austin	455	87.4%	53 min	0.22%	A+
LAX to TPA · Tampa	419	89.5%	54 min	0.24%	A+
LAX to SEA · Seattle	395	84.0%	44 min	0.51%	B+
LAX to LIH · Lihue	378	92.6%	50 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to BZN · Bozeman	365	89.6%	66 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to PHX · Phoenixthin sample	348	85.3%	73 min	0.57%	A+
LAX to SMF · Sacramentothin sample	201	83.5%	42 min	0.00%	B+
LAX to SAN · San Diegothin sample	158	89.9%	44 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to SLC · Salt Lake Citythin sample	149	88.6%	65 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to JAC · Jacksonthin sample	116	90.4%	84 min	0.86%	A+
LAX to FAT · Fresnothin sample	108	87.0%	59 min	0.00%	A+

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 14 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am2,970 flights92.4%
8am–11am7,623 flights84.9%
11am–2pm5,633 flights78.7%
2pm–5pm3,357 flights80.3%
5pm–8pm3,892 flights81.3%
8pm–5am5,483 flights83.8%

Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 78.7% on time against 92.4% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise.

Across the year

Seasonal pattern

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.October best, July worst

July is the worst month at 78.5% on time, 9 points below October, the best at 87.0%. 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.

Delay causes

What holds this operation up

National Airspace System
38%
Late-arriving aircraft
34%
Carrier
27%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
0%

38% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 117,000 minutes out of 306,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations are rare at 0.59%, 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.

5.5% 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 about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

28,958 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 16 points, which is the most any booking decision can do.

Common questions

United Airlines at LAX

How often is United Airlines at LAX delayed?

About one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.8% of the 28,958 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on United 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 United Airlines at LAX?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.4% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 78.7%, 14 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 United Airlines at LAX?

July is the weakest month at 78.5% on time, compared with 87.0% in October. 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, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures