Los Angeles, CA · departure reliability

LAX

Los Angeles International

Departures: 189,670
Period: June 2025 to May 2026
Carriers: 11
US rank: #6 by volume

Terminal building and aircraft stands at a US airport

Los Angeles

Los Angeles International lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 189,670 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 40,411 at 85.5% on time.

SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the eleven carriers covered here at 85.5% on time across 40,411 flights.

On time

80.5%

Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination

Avg delay

69 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

0.94%

National rate is 1.80%

Best carrier

SkyWest

85.5% on time here

These figures cover 190,000 flights between June 2025 and May 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.

Carrier by carrier

Which airlines run best out of LAX

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 by carrier departing LAX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	40,411	85.5%	73 min	0.64%	A+
Delta Air Lines	37,232	81.3%	68 min	1.08%	B
American Airlines	29,641	76.3%	87 min	1.31%	B
United Airlines	28,958	83.2%	64 min	0.59%	B+
Southwest Airlines	25,180	76.8%	49 min	0.52%	B+
Alaska Airlines	8,948	82.4%	55 min	1.03%	B
JetBlue Airways	7,717	76.4%	73 min	1.72%	B
Frontier Airlines	5,434	70.3%	83 min	1.77%	C
Spirit Airlines	4,592	79.4%	75 min	2.09%	B
Hawaiian Airlines	1,175	70.0%	71 min	0.77%	C+
Allegiant Air	372	77.1%	105 min	0.27%	B+

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

Busiest routes out of LAX

Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from LAX, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 80.5%.

Busiest routes from LAX by flight volume
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
LAX to SFO · San Francisco	10,832	67.8%	58 min	0.80%	C+
LAX to JFK · New York	10,337	78.6%	92 min	1.97%	B
LAX to LAS · Las Vegas	8,420	76.9%	65 min	0.76%	B+
LAX to DEN · Denver	7,729	81.5%	65 min	0.50%	B+
LAX to PHX · Phoenix	7,608	81.2%	67 min	0.79%	B+
LAX to SEA · Seattle	7,405	85.2%	63 min	1.03%	A
LAX to ORD · Chicago	6,981	76.9%	84 min	1.66%	B
LAX to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	6,263	74.6%	90 min	2.25%	C
LAX to SMF · Sacramento	5,600	84.9%	64 min	0.39%	B+
LAX to HNL · Honolulu	5,427	76.6%	72 min	0.50%	B+
LAX to IAH · Houston	5,291	84.0%	67 min	0.66%	B+
LAX to ATL · Atlanta	5,090	76.4%	68 min	1.08%	B
LAX to EWR · Newark	5,002	79.2%	77 min	2.10%	B
LAX to BOS · Boston	4,659	78.5%	79 min	1.35%	B
LAX to PDX · Portland	4,450	86.0%	70 min	0.94%	A+
LAX to SJC · San Jose	4,400	87.3%	50 min	0.68%	A+
LAX to SLC · Salt Lake City	4,116	87.9%	75 min	0.44%	A+
LAX to AUS · Austin	4,073	79.0%	65 min	0.74%	B+
LAX to MCO · Orlando	3,451	77.2%	67 min	0.55%	B+
LAX to MIA · Miami	3,249	77.8%	67 min	0.68%	B+
LAX to DTW · Detroit	2,603	82.3%	68 min	1.08%	B
LAX to TUS · Tucson	2,565	81.3%	77 min	0.43%	B+
LAX to RNO · Reno	2,512	87.8%	57 min	0.44%	A+
LAX to PHL · Philadelphia	2,445	78.1%	80 min	1.64%	B
LAX to SAN · San Diego	2,437	86.5%	63 min	0.94%	A+

Departure window

The best time of day to leave LAX

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–8am23,375 flights90.8%
8am–11am47,198 flights82.3%
11am–2pm30,837 flights77.1%
2pm–5pm27,160 flights76.9%
5pm–8pm26,858 flights78.0%
8pm–5am34,242 flights79.2%

Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.8% of the time, against 76.9% for the afternoon window. That is 14 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.

Across the year

When LAX runs late

Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 189,670 flights. The strip shows how much of LAX's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.

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

July is the worst month at 77.5% on time, 8 points below September, the best at 85.8%. 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.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.4%. 6 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why LAX gets delayed

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 2.53 million reported delay minutes.

Carrier
40%
Late-arriving aircraft
37%
National Airspace System
21%
Extreme weather
2%
Security
0%

37% 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 2.53 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 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 largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1.00 million of the 2.53 million delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 0.94% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.

6.6% 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 a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

189,670 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.

What to do with this

Flying out of LAX

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

LAX delay questions

How often is Los Angeles (LAX) 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 19.5% of the 189,670 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on Los Angeles (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 Los Angeles (LAX)?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 76.9%, 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 Los Angeles (LAX)?

July is the weakest month at 77.5% on time, compared with 85.8% in September. Across the year that is 8 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