Route reliability record
AUS→LAX
Austin to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 4,077
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,242 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 4,077 flights, of which United Airlines flew 451 at 88.8% on time.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 88.8% on time across 451 flights.
Key figures
On time
81.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,038 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.74%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
88.8% on time across 451 flights
These figures cover 4,077 flights between July 2025 and June 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 airline is most reliable on AUS to LAX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 88.8% of the time; American Airlines manages 71.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 482 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 451 | 88.8% | 91 min | 0.44% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 817 | 88.0% | 71 min | 0.49% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,286 | 83.0% | 69 min | 1.09% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,025 | 75.0% | 52 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 16 | 75.0% | 54 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 482 | 71.5% | 98 min | 1.04% | C |
The spread between United and American is 17 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 17 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 26 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,126 flights91.1%
- 8am–11am268 flights93.1%
- 11am–2pm258 flights78.7%
- 2pm–5pm1,343 flights79.5%
- 5pm–8pm503 flights74.5%
- 8pm–5am579 flights67.6%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 93.1% of the time, against 67.6% for the overnight window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,343 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
July is the worst month at 70.7% on time, 20 points below September, the best at 91.1%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 387 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.1%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 53,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% 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 53,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 53,180 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, 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 20,000 of the 53,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.74%, below the national 1.81% 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
6.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. 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.
The 1,242 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.3% on time across 4,076 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 4,077 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 91.1% on time and July 70.7%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,038 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
AUS to LAX questions
How often is AUS to 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 18.7% of the 4,077 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on AUS to LAX?
United Airlines leads at 88.8% on time across 451 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 71.5%, a gap of 17 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 AUS to LAX?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 93.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 67.6%, 26 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 AUS to LAX?
July is the weakest month at 70.7% on time, compared with 91.1% in September. Across the year that is 20 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 AUS — the return legseparate record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- United Airlines on-time record88.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record88.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. AUS to LAX and LAX to AUS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.