Route reliability record
LAX→AUS
Los Angeles to Austin
- Flights
- 4,077
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,242 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 4,077 LAX to AUS flights, of which United Airlines flew 441 at 86.8% on time.
Best time to fly LAX to AUS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.3%, against 77.0% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 86.8% on time across 441 flights.
Key figures
On time
77.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,042 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
86.8% on time across 441 flights
These figures cover 4,077 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 LAX to AUS
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 86.8% of the time; American Airlines manages 65.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 373 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 441 | 86.8% | 52 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 921 | 84.0% | 57 min | 0.33% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,292 | 80.9% | 66 min | 1.16% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 14 | 71.4% | 56 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,036 | 66.2% | 48 min | 0.48% | C+ |
| American Airlines | 373 | 65.6% | 100 min | 0.54% | C+ |
The spread between United and American is 21 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 21 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on LAX to AUS
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Los Angeles to Austin
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LAX → AUSLos Angeles to Austin | United Airlines | 86.8% | 86.8% | 0.00% | 2pm–5pm, Wed | — |
| 2. LAX → AUSLos Angeles to Austin | SkyWest Airlines | 83.7% | 84.0% | 0.33% | 5pm–8pm, Thu | — |
| 3. LAX → AUSLos Angeles to Austin | Delta Air Lines | 80.0% | 80.9% | 1.16% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 946 07:35 |
| 4. LAX → AUSLos Angeles to Austin | Southwest Airlines | 65.9% | 66.2% | 0.48% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 5. LAX → AUSLos Angeles to Austin | American Airlines | 65.2% | 65.6% | 0.54% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 32 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am691 flights89.4%
- 8am–11am1,059 flights82.0%
- 11am–2pm424 flights71.2%
- 2pm–5pm785 flights70.4%
- 5pm–8pm959 flights74.0%
- 8pm–5am159 flights57.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 57.0% on time, against 89.4% 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 1,059 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAX to AUS 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 LAX to AUS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 57.0%, a wide gap of 32.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.4%
- 8–11am82.0%
- 11am–2pm71.2%
- 2–5pm70.4%
- 5–8pm74.0%
- 8pm–5am57.0%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 93.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 387 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.3%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 57,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 57,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 23 to one. The split is drawn from 57,324 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 22,000 of the 57,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.61%, 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
7.1% 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 about an hour, 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.6% on time across 4,084 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.
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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in AUS after this flight
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 93.7% on time and May 71.1%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 4,042 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to AUS questions
How often is LAX to AUS delayed?
Roughly 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 23.0% of the 4,077 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to AUS?
United Airlines leads at 86.8% on time across 441 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 65.6%, a gap of 21 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 LAX to AUS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 57.0%, 32 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 May delays on LAX to AUS?
May is the weakest month at 71.1% on time, compared with 93.7% in September. 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
- AUS to LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- United Airlines on LAX to AUS86.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on LAX to AUS84.0%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to AUS80.9%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to AUS66.2%
- American Airlines on LAX to AUS65.6%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- DEN to AUS, a related route76.2%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- United Airlines on-time record86.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record84.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.9%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LAX to AUS and AUS to LAX 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.