Route reliability record
LAS→MKE
Las Vegas to Milwaukee
- Flights
- 1,032
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,524 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,032 LAS to MKE flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly LAS to MKE: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.2% of the time and Saturday flights 86.8%, against 72.9% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,022 completed flights
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.87%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
72.5% on time across 1,002 flights
These figures cover 1,032 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
Which airline is most reliable on LAS to MKE
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 24 | 87.0% | 84 min | 4.17% | A− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 6 | 80.0% | 18 min | 16.67% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,002 | 72.5% | 49 min | 0.70% | C+ |
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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 35 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am84 flights95.2%
- 8am–11am291 flights87.6%
- 11am–2pm140 flights65.9%
- 2pm–5pm201 flights64.5%
- 5pm–8pm280 flights62.0%
- 8pm–5am36 flights60.0%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 60.0% on time, against 95.2% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 291 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAS to MKE 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 LAS to MKE, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 60.0%, a wide gap of 35.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.2%
- 8–11am87.6%
- 11am–2pm65.9%
- 2–5pm64.5%
- 5–8pm62.0%
- 8pm–5am60.0%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
June is the worst month at 58.5% on time, 23 points below December, the best at 81.3%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 109 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 61.7%, a spread of 25 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 14,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 54 to one. The split is drawn from 13,515 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 95.2% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.87%, 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
6.3% 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 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,524 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.0% on time across 1,033 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,032 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MKE after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,032 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 72.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,022 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAS to MKE questions
How often is LAS to MKE delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.1% of the 1,032 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is LAS to MKE compared with the rest of the country?
72.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAS to MKE?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 60.0%, 35 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 June delays on LAS to MKE?
June is the weakest month at 58.5% on time, compared with 81.3% in December. Across the year that is 23 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
- MKE to LAS — the return legseparate record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Milwaukee Mitchell International (MKE) delay statistics
- LAS to LAX, a related route77.9%
- ORD to MKE, a related route64.3%
- LAS to DEN, a related route76.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record87.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record80.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. LAS to MKE and MKE to LAS 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.