Carrier route record
AAAUS→LAX
American Airlines · Austin to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 482
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 12%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on AUS to LAX sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 482 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 451 at 88.8% on time.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 88.8% on time across 451 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 477 completed flights
Avg delay
98 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.04%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.3%
Every carrier on AUS to LAX, 4,077 flights
These figures cover 482 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on AUS to LAX
American flew 482 of the 4,077 flights on AUS to LAX, about 12% of it. Its 71.5% on time is 10 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 88.8% to American at 71.5%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 88.8% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 75.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,025 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 |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 16 | 75.0% | 54 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,025 | 75.0% | 52 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 482 | 71.5% | 98 min | 1.04% | C |
The spread between United 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.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 21 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am8 flights—
- 8am–11am37 flights86.1%
- 11am–2pm21 flights—
- 2pm–5pm82 flights81.7%
- 5pm–8pm94 flights69.6%
- 8pm–5am240 flights65.5%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 86.1% of the time, against 65.5% for the overnight window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 240 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on AUS to LAX through the year
December is the weak month at 57.6% on time, against 78.3% in August. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 64.8%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 61% of the 13,000 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.
- 61%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 9%Extreme weather
- 8%National Airspace System
61% 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 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 13,382 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.04% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
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 runs 68.7% on time across 480 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 482 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking American on AUS to LAX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 482 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 71.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 477 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- AUS to LAX, every carrier
- American on LAX to AUS, the return leg
- United Airlines on AUS to LAX88.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on AUS to LAX88.0%
- Delta Air Lines on AUS to LAX83.0%
- Southwest Airlines on AUS to LAX75.0%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.