Carrier performance at one airport

UA→LAX

United Airlines at Los Angeles International

Departures: 29,614
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Routes: 25
Rank here: #2 of 10

United Airlines at Los Angeles lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 29,614 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 40,778 at 84.9% on time.

Measured against the airport rather than the country, United Airlines runs 3 points ahead of the 79.5% 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

82.5%

29,341 completed departures

Avg delay

62 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

0.50%

At LAX, this carrier only

Rank here

Of 10 carriers clearing the floor at LAX

These figures cover 30,000 flights between September 2025 and August 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 84.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 72.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 25,511 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	40,778	84.9%	70 min	0.62%	B+
United Airlines (this page)	29,614	82.5%	62 min	0.50%	B+
Delta Air Lines	37,561	80.9%	68 min	1.16%	B
Alaska Airlines	9,969	80.0%	55 min	0.82%	B+
Spirit Airlines	2,730	76.4%	74 min	2.97%	B
American Airlines	29,810	76.0%	85 min	1.32%	B
JetBlue Airways	7,733	75.7%	68 min	2.66%	B
Hawaiian Airlines	643	74.0%	87 min	1.24%	C
Frontier Airlines	5,699	73.6%	78 min	1.67%	C
Southwest Airlines	25,511	72.3%	50 min	0.54%	C+

The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 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	3,526	77.7%	77 min	1.76%	B
LAX to IAH · Houston	3,420	87.4%	52 min	0.18%	A+
LAX to ORD · Chicago	3,414	79.9%	69 min	0.70%	B+
LAX to SFO · San Francisco	3,330	62.9%	56 min	0.12%	D+
LAX to DEN · Denver	3,081	87.7%	69 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to IAD · Washington	2,341	88.0%	54 min	0.56%	A+
LAX to LAS · Las Vegas	1,574	83.1%	55 min	0.51%	B+
LAX to HNL · Honolulu	1,294	84.0%	91 min	0.31%	B+
LAX to MCO · Orlando	827	89.2%	57 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to BOS · Boston	731	85.3%	71 min	0.96%	A+
LAX to CLE · Cleveland	640	92.3%	44 min	0.31%	A+
LAX to OGG · Kahului	581	86.5%	30 min	0.52%	A+
LAX to BWI · Baltimore	577	89.1%	63 min	0.35%	A+
LAX to KOA · Kailua-Kona	489	89.2%	44 min	0.82%	A+
LAX to AUS · Austin	441	86.8%	52 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to LIH · Lihue	377	94.7%	44 min	0.80%	A+
LAX to SEA · Seattle	376	89.1%	40 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to BZN · Bozemanthin sample	362	90.6%	54 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to TPA · Tampathin sample	327	88.7%	50 min	0.31%	A+
LAX to SAN · San Diegothin sample	290	77.6%	49 min	0.00%	B+
LAX to PHX · Phoenixthin sample	245	88.9%	88 min	0.41%	A+
LAX to SMF · Sacramentothin sample	202	83.6%	42 min	0.00%	B+
LAX to FAT · Fresnothin sample	199	83.9%	58 min	0.00%	B+
LAX to RNO · Renothin sample	176	86.4%	41 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to CMH · Columbusthin sample	156	83.3%	72 min	0.00%	B+

Flight by flight

United Airlines flight numbers from LAX

36 United Airlines flight numbers leaving LAX flew their main route often enough to have a record of their own. Grouped by destination.

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 13 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am3,050 flights90.7%
8am–11am7,910 flights84.8%
11am–2pm5,787 flights78.2%
2pm–5pm3,381 flights78.7%
5pm–8pm3,918 flights80.1%
8pm–5am5,568 flights83.1%

Scale runs 70% to 95%.

The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 78.2% on time against 90.7% 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. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 7,910 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Seasonal pattern

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

August is the worst month at 75.3% on time, 12 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. July was the busiest month here, with 2,818 flights.

Delay causes

What holds this operation up

National Airspace System
41%
Late-arriving aircraft
33%
Carrier
26%
Extreme weather
1%

41% 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 131,000 minutes out of 321,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 320,987 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.50%, below the national 1.89% 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.

5.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

29,614 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 August 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 13 points, which is the most any booking decision can do. 29,341 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

United Airlines at LAX

How often is United Airlines at LAX delayed?

About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.5% of the 29,614 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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 84.9% on time across 40,778 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 72.3%, a gap of 13 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 90.7% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 78.2%, 13 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 August delays on United Airlines at LAX?

August is the weakest month at 75.3% on time, compared with 87.0% in October. Across the year that is 12 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures