Route reliability record
ABQ→LAX
Albuquerque to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 2,242
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 677 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 11 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 2,242 ABQ to LAX flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,727 at 91.3% on time.
Best time to fly ABQ to LAX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 90.5%, against 88.1% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 108 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,225 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.49%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
91.3% on time across 1,727 flights
These figures cover 2,242 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ABQ to LAX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 91.3% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 77.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 515 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,727 | 91.3% | 110 min | 0.29% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 515 | 77.4% | 57 min | 1.17% | B |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on ABQ to LAX
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Albuquerque to Los Angeles
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ABQ → LAXAlbuquerque to Los Angeles | SkyWest Airlines | 91.0% | 91.3% | 0.29% | 5am–8am, Tue | OO 4115 06:00 |
| 2. ABQ → LAXAlbuquerque to Los Angeles | Southwest Airlines | 76.5% | 77.4% | 1.17% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 33 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am813 flights93.8%
- 8am–11am26 flights—
- 11am–2pm729 flights90.7%
- 2pm–5pm136 flights81.6%
- 5pm–8pm442 flights81.5%
- 8pm–5am96 flights60.4%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 60.4% on time, against 93.8% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 813 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ABQ to LAX by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ABQ to LAX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 60.4%, a wide gap of 33.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.8%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm90.7%
- 2–5pm81.6%
- 5–8pm81.5%
- 8pm–5am60.4%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 2,242 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 81.8%. January is the strongest month at 92.4%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 11 points. May was the busiest month here, with 207 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 90.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 86.3%, a spread of 4 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 58% of the 23,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
- 4%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 58%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 13,000 of the 23,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 22,979 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.49%, 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.4% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% 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.
The 677 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.0% on time across 2,243 flights, 3 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,242 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in LAX after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: avoid the 8pm–5am departure. It runs 60.4% on time against 93.8% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 33 points is the largest single thing you control here. SkyWest Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 2,225 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ABQ to LAX questions
How often is ABQ to LAX delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 11.9% of the 2,242 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ABQ to LAX?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 91.3% on time across 1,727 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 77.4%, a gap of 14 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 ABQ to LAX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 60.4%, 33 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 October delays on ABQ to LAX?
October is the weakest month at 81.8% on time, compared with 92.4% in January. Across the year that is 11 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to ABQ — the return legseparate record
- Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on ABQ to LAX91.3%
- Southwest Airlines on ABQ to LAX77.4%
- ABQ to PHX, a related route81.8%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- ABQ to DEN, a related route82.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record91.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.4%
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. ABQ to LAX and LAX to ABQ are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.