Carrier route record
WNLAS→AUS
Southwest Airlines · Las Vegas to Austin
- Flights
- 2,176
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 76%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on LAS to AUS sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 2,176 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on LAS to AUS runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 43 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,166 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.23%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.5%
Every carrier on LAS to AUS, 2,865 flights
These figures cover 2,176 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on LAS to AUS
Southwest flew 2,176 of the 2,865 flights on LAS to AUS, most of the route. Its 73.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 73.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Allegiant at 85.0% to Spirit at 61.5%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 20 | 85.0% | 83 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 291 | 81.8% | 64 min | 1.37% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 2,176 | 73.3% | 50 min | 0.23% | C+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 365 | 67.8% | 73 min | 0.82% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 13 | 61.5% | 47 min | 0.00% | D+ |
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 35 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am516 flights90.9%
- 8am–11am405 flights81.6%
- 11am–2pm407 flights72.6%
- 2pm–5pm420 flights60.5%
- 5pm–8pm335 flights58.0%
- 8pm–5am93 flights55.9%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.9% on time, against 90.9% 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 516 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on LAS to AUS through the year
June is the worst month at 63.3% on time, 21 points below December, the best at 84.4%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 199 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.1%. 21 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 29,000 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% 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 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 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 29,048 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 10,000 of the 29,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.23%, 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 costs
7.0% 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 last about 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,090 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 75.1% on time across 2,177 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,176 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 Southwest on LAS to AUS
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. December runs 84.4% on time and June 63.3%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,166 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAS to AUS, every carrier
- Southwest on AUS to LAS, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on LAS to AUS81.8%
- Delta Air Lines on LAS to AUS67.8%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.