Carrier route record
WNAUS→MCI
Southwest Airlines · Austin to Kansas City
- Flights
- 895
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 85%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on AUS to MCI sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 895 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on AUS to MCI from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 890 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.45%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
75.7%
Every carrier on AUS to MCI, 1,048 flights
These figures cover 895 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 2 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
Southwest against every carrier on AUS to MCI
Southwest flew 895 of the 1,048 flights on AUS to MCI, most of the route. Its 74.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 83.0% to Southwest at 74.5%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 153 | 83.0% | 134 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 895 | 74.5% | 53 min | 0.45% | C+ |
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Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 39 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am184 flights95.1%
- 8am–11am153 flights92.8%
- 11am–2pm79 flights68.4%
- 2pm–5pm155 flights65.2%
- 5pm–8pm125 flights67.2%
- 8pm–5am199 flights55.6%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.6% on time, against 95.1% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 199 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on AUS to MCI through the year
Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 60.6%. January is the strongest month at 90.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 30 points. July was the busiest month here, with 88 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on AUS to MCI runs when it is late
The 227 late arrivals split 89 under half an hour, 71 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 67 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early113 flights12.7%
- Within 15 min550 flights61.8%
- 15–29 min late89 flights10.0%
- 30–59 min late71 flights8.0%
- 1–2 hours late49 flights5.5%
- 2+ hours late18 flights2.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 890 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
62 of 264 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 23% of them. 25 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on AUS to MCI
The latest arrival of the period was on 21 November 2025, 5 hours 9 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 21 November 2025 | 5 hours 9 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 July 2026 | 4 hours 49 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 May 2026 | 4 hours 9 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 July 2026 | 3 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 June 2026 | 3 hours 25 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
62% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 62 to one. The split is drawn from 12,062 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 95.1% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.45%, 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 costs
7.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 650 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 80.2% on time across 896 flights, 6 points above 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 895 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 Southwest on AUS to MCI
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 895 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 74.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 890 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- AUS to MCI, every carrier
- Southwest on MCI to AUS, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on AUS to MCI83.0%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.