Carrier route record
AALAX→AUS
American Airlines · Los Angeles to Austin
- Flights
- 480
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 12%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on LAX to AUS sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 480 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 451 at 87.5% on time.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 87.5% on time across 451 flights.
Key figures
On time
68.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 473 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.04%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.3%
Every carrier on LAX to AUS, 4,076 flights
These figures cover 480 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on LAX to AUS
American flew 480 of the 4,076 flights on LAX to AUS, about 12% of it. Its 68.7% on time is 10 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 87.5% to American at 68.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 87.5% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 68.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,026 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| 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 (this page) | 480 | 68.7% | 95 min | 1.04% | C |
The spread between United and Southwest 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
When American 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 19 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am95 flights90.4%
- 8am–11am20 flights—
- 11am–2pm37 flights68.6%
- 2pm–5pm185 flights55.4%
- 5pm–8pm139 flights68.4%
- 8pm–5am4 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.4% of the time, against 55.4% for the afternoon window. That is 35 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 185 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on LAX to AUS through the year
October is the best month on the calendar at 89.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 77.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 57.4%. 20 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 74% of the 14,000 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.
- 74%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%Carrier
- 5%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
74% 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 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 74 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 13,996 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 90.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.04% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.42%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 16.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
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 runs 71.5% on time across 482 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 480 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 American on LAX to AUS
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 480 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 68.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 473 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to AUS, every carrier
- American on AUS to LAX, the return leg
- United Airlines on LAX to AUS87.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on LAX to AUS85.6%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to AUS81.5%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to AUS68.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.