Airport month record

LAXOCT

Los Angeles International in October 2025

Departures: 16,122
Month: October 2025
National, same month: 79.7%
Carriers: 10

Historical statistics for October 2025, not live status or a forecast for this year’s October. For today’s conditions at LAX, see live FAA status.

LAX in October lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 79.7%. About one flight in six arrives 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 16,122 flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 621 at 89.7% on time.

Alaska Airlines is the most reliable of the nine carriers covered here at 89.7% on time across 621 flights.

On time

83.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 16,044 completed departures

Avg delay

70 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.31%

Nationally in October: 0.53%

Whole year

80.4%

LAX across all twelve months

These figures cover 16,122 departures from Los Angeles International in October 2025. On time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the DOT's threshold, and the national comparison uses every US departure in the same month rather than the whole year.

Against the year

October next to LAX's other months

Against LAX's own year, October ran 3 points better than the twelve-month rate of 80.4%, which makes it number two of twelve months, best first. Cancellations were unusually low for LAX in October, at 0.31% against 0.94% across the year. Either side of it, September ran 85.8% on time and November 79.7%, so this month sits in line with its neighbours.

LAX month by month
Month	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
July 2025	17,104	77.5%	78 min	1.20%	B
August 2025	16,493	82.5%	73 min	0.53%	B+
September 2025	15,262	85.8%	66 min	0.28%	A+
October 2025 (this page)	16,122	83.5%	70 min	0.31%	B+
November 2025	15,422	79.7%	67 min	1.78%	B
December 2025	16,050	77.7%	71 min	0.88%	B+
January 2026	14,815	81.2%	76 min	2.17%	B
February 2026	13,687	80.9%	69 min	1.42%	B
March 2026	16,088	77.7%	65 min	1.29%	B
April 2026	15,732	81.5%	62 min	0.44%	B+
May 2026	16,317	80.0%	64 min	0.54%	B+
June 2026	16,664	77.0%	69 min	0.61%	B+

Departure window

The best time of day to leave LAX in October

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 16 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am2,069 flights92.8%
8am–11am3,921 flights85.4%
11am–2pm2,734 flights80.7%
2pm–5pm2,321 flights77.3%
5pm–8pm2,204 flights79.8%
8pm–5am2,873 flights84.6%

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

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.8% of the time, against 77.3% for the afternoon window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 3,921 flights scheduled in it.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.3%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Carrier by carrier

Which airlines ran best at LAX in October

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Alaska Airlines arrives on time 89.7% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 74.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 513 flights means less than a ten-point one.

Carriers at LAX in October 2025
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	3,409	86.4%	69 min	0.03%	A+
Delta Air Lines	3,177	85.2%	76 min	0.19%	A+
American Airlines	2,482	81.6%	89 min	0.32%	B+
United Airlines	2,400	87.0%	62 min	0.29%	A+
Southwest Airlines	2,234	77.4%	48 min	0.18%	B+
JetBlue Airways	648	79.2%	90 min	0.77%	B+
Alaska Airlines	621	89.7%	60 min	1.77%	A
Frontier Airlines	513	74.3%	73 min	0.00%	C+
Spirit Airlines	478	83.5%	74 min	1.26%	B
Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample	150	69.6%	73 min	1.33%	C

The spread between Alaska and Frontier is 15 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 15 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

Route by route

Busiest routes out of LAX in October

Routes from LAX in October 2025
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
LAX to SFO · San Francisco	990	64.9%	52 min	0.10%	D+
LAX to JFK · New York	897	83.0%	105 min	0.89%	B+
LAX to LAS · Las Vegas	683	76.6%	58 min	0.00%	B+
LAX to DEN · Denver	683	85.9%	57 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to PHX · Phoenix	667	80.8%	52 min	0.15%	B+
LAX to SEA · Seattle	612	88.6%	62 min	0.98%	A+
LAX to ORD · Chicago	564	80.8%	67 min	0.18%	B+
LAX to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	558	78.5%	101 min	0.72%	B+
LAX to SMF · Sacramento	516	86.4%	66 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to IAH · Houston	493	87.8%	49 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to EWR · Newark	481	81.1%	76 min	1.04%	B
LAX to ATL · Atlanta	424	84.6%	95 min	0.00%	B+
LAX to SJC · San Jose	420	85.0%	51 min	0.24%	A+
LAX to BOS · Boston	403	72.2%	103 min	0.74%	C+
LAX to HNL · Honolulu	389	81.4%	88 min	0.26%	B+
LAX to PDX · Portland	379	88.9%	76 min	0.53%	A+
LAX to SLC · Salt Lake Citythin sample	349	92.0%	59 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to AUS · Austinthin sample	348	84.7%	74 min	0.00%	B+
LAX to MCO · Orlandothin sample	281	83.5%	80 min	0.00%	B+
LAX to MIA · Miamithin sample	269	86.2%	60 min	0.37%	A+
LAX to PHL · Philadelphiathin sample	243	82.2%	56 min	0.00%	B+
LAX to DTW · Detroitthin sample	235	91.5%	96 min	0.43%	A+
LAX to TUS · Tucsonthin sample	212	76.4%	61 min	0.00%	B+
LAX to BNA · Nashvillethin sample	209	82.2%	68 min	0.48%	B+
LAX to SAN · San Diegothin sample	208	85.6%	110 min	0.00%	A+

Delay causes

What held LAX up in October

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 186,000 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
38%
Late-arriving aircraft
37%
National Airspace System
21%
Extreme weather
5%
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 186,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 185,898 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.31%, below the national 0.53% 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 6.3%. 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 last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

What to do with this

Flying from LAX in October

For a October trip through LAX: this is one of the better months to be flying from here, 83.5% on time with 0.31% cancelled. That is a base rate for the month as a whole; a single storm can still spoil a particular day.

Los Angeles International (LAX), the whole year
LAX in July77.5%
LAX in August82.5%
LAX in September85.8%
LAX in November79.7%
LAX in December77.7%
LAX in January81.2%
LAX in February80.9%
LAX in March77.7%
LAX in April81.5%
LAX in May80.0%
LAX in June77.0%

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures