Route reliability record

LAX→AUS

Los Angeles to Austin

Flights: 4,076
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 1,242 mi
Carriers: 6

This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 4,076 flights, of which United Airlines flew 451 at 87.5% on time.

United Airlines is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 87.5% on time across 451 flights.

On time

78.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,035 completed flights

Avg delay

65 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.74%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

United

87.5% on time across 451 flights

These figures cover 4,076 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.

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 87.5% of the time; American Airlines manages 68.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 480 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on LAX to AUS
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	451	87.5%	53 min	0.22%	A+
SkyWest Airlines	817	85.6%	58 min	0.49%	A+
Delta Air Lines	1,285	81.5%	73 min	1.09%	B
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	17	76.5%	56 min	0.00%	B+
Southwest Airlines	1,026	68.8%	51 min	0.58%	C+
American Airlines	480	68.7%	95 min	1.04%	C

The spread between United and American is 19 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 19 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

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 30 points, against 19 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am751 flights89.9%
8am–11am998 flights83.0%
11am–2pm425 flights71.3%
2pm–5pm791 flights72.4%
5pm–8pm962 flights75.2%
8pm–5am149 flights59.5%

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.5% on time, against 89.9% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 998 flights scheduled in it.

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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, May worst

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 84.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.2%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 57,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
47%
Carrier
38%
National Airspace System
13%
Extreme weather
2%
Security
0%

47% 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 57,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 23 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 57,292 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, 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 22,000 of the 57,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.74%, 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 actually costs

7.4% 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 are the about an hour kind, 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. 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.3% on time across 4,077 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 4,076 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 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. 4,035 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

LAX to AUS questions

How often is LAX to AUS delayed?

About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.7% of the 4,076 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on LAX to AUS?

United Airlines leads at 87.5% on time across 451 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 68.7%, a gap of 19 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 89.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.5%, 30 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.

Where to go next

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.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures