Airport month record

LAXSEP

Los Angeles International in September 2025

Departures: 15,262
Month: September 2025
National, same month: 83.4%
Carriers: 10

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

LAX in September earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 2 points better than the national rate of 83.4%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 15,262 flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 612 at 93.1% on time.

Alaska Airlines is the most reliable of the nine carriers covered here at 93.1% on time across 612 flights.

On time

85.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 15,181 completed departures

Avg delay

66 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.28%

Nationally in September: 0.51%

Whole year

80.4%

LAX across all twelve months

These figures cover 15,262 departures from Los Angeles International in September 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

September next to LAX's other months

Against LAX's own year, September ran 5 points better than the twelve-month rate of 80.4%, which makes it the best of the twelve months in the data. Cancellations were unusually low for LAX in September, at 0.28% against 0.94% across the year. Either side of it, August ran 82.5% on time and October 83.5%, so a trip moved by a few weeks would have landed in a worse stretch.

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 (this page)	15,262	85.8%	66 min	0.28%	A+
October 2025	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 September

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 12 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am1,944 flights94.0%
8am–11am3,813 flights85.9%
11am–2pm2,552 flights83.9%
2pm–5pm2,258 flights82.0%
5pm–8pm2,065 flights82.6%
8pm–5am2,630 flights87.1%

Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.0% of the time, against 82.0% for the afternoon window. That is 12 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 3,813 flights scheduled in it.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Thursday the weakest at 80.9%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Carrier by carrier

Which airlines ran best at LAX in September

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Alaska Airlines arrives on time 93.1% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 72.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 449 flights means less than a ten-point one.

Carriers at LAX in September 2025
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	3,355	89.5%	60 min	0.15%	A+
Delta Air Lines	3,028	87.5%	70 min	0.07%	A+
American Airlines	2,210	81.1%	83 min	0.77%	B+
United Airlines	2,208	86.2%	56 min	0.18%	A+
Southwest Airlines	2,022	82.6%	47 min	0.25%	B+
JetBlue Airways	621	84.6%	59 min	0.16%	B+
Alaska Airlines	612	93.1%	43 min	0.33%	A+
Spirit Airlines	596	87.8%	89 min	0.67%	A+
Frontier Airlines	449	72.0%	86 min	0.67%	C+
Hawaiian Airlinesthin sample	146	82.8%	87 min	0.00%	B+

The spread between Alaska and Frontier is 21 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 21 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

Route by route

Busiest routes out of LAX in September

Routes from LAX in September 2025
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
LAX to SFO · San Francisco	916	70.0%	48 min	0.00%	C+
LAX to JFK · New York	857	83.8%	74 min	0.35%	B+
LAX to LAS · Las Vegas	690	77.8%	73 min	0.58%	B+
LAX to DEN · Denver	649	81.0%	67 min	0.31%	B+
LAX to ORD · Chicago	614	81.8%	69 min	0.16%	B+
LAX to SEA · Seattle	606	92.5%	43 min	0.50%	A+
LAX to PHX · Phoenix	586	83.2%	85 min	1.37%	B
LAX to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	487	81.1%	89 min	1.44%	B
LAX to EWR · Newark	467	86.1%	68 min	0.86%	A+
LAX to SMF · Sacramento	461	90.2%	60 min	0.22%	A+
LAX to ATL · Atlanta	455	87.9%	86 min	0.22%	A+
LAX to IAH · Houston	439	92.3%	79 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to SJC · San Jose	424	92.0%	42 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to HNL · Honolulu	386	85.2%	79 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to PDX · Portland	372	90.6%	45 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to BOS · Bostonthin sample	363	73.0%	69 min	0.00%	C+
LAX to SLC · Salt Lake Citythin sample	338	90.8%	72 min	0.30%	A+
LAX to AUS · Austinthin sample	270	93.7%	111 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to MCO · Orlandothin sample	255	90.9%	54 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to DTW · Detroitthin sample	228	89.0%	88 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to RNO · Renothin sample	213	92.5%	39 min	0.47%	A+
LAX to MIA · Miamithin sample	212	87.7%	55 min	0.00%	A+
LAX to SAN · San Diegothin sample	209	89.9%	99 min	0.96%	A+
LAX to PHL · Philadelphiathin sample	209	80.8%	53 min	0.48%	B+
LAX to TUS · Tucsonthin sample	196	83.2%	65 min	0.00%	B+

Delay causes

What held LAX up in September

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 143,000 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
37%
Late-arriving aircraft
37%
National Airspace System
24%
Extreme weather
1%
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 143,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 25 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 142,686 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.28%, below the national 0.51% 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.

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 5.4% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

What to do with this

Flying from LAX in September

For a September trip through LAX: this is one of the better months to be flying from here, 85.8% on time with 0.28% 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 October83.5%
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