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DelayAtlas

Carrier route record

DLLAXAUS

Delta Air Lines · Los Angeles to Austin

Flights
1,285
Period
July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route
32%
Carriers
6
BGRADE

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on LAX to AUS lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,285 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

81.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,268 completed flights

Avg delay

73 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.09%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.3%

Every carrier on LAX to AUS, 4,076 flights

These figures cover 1,285 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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

Delta against every carrier on LAX to AUS

Delta flew 1,285 of the 4,076 flights on LAX to AUS, about 32% of it. Its 81.5% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three 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; 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
AirlineFlightsOn timeAvg delayCancelledGrade
United Airlines45187.5%53 min0.22%A+
SkyWest Airlines81785.6%58 min0.49%A+
Delta Air Lines (this page)1,28581.5%73 min1.09%B
Spirit Airlinesthin sample1776.5%56 min0.00%B+
Southwest Airlines1,02668.8%51 min0.58%C+
American Airlines48068.7%95 min1.04%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.

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on LAX to AUS

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 14 points, against 19 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

  • 5am–8am303 flights88.6%
  • 8am–11am339 flights84.1%
  • 11am–2pm133 flights83.3%
  • 2pm–5pm223 flights75.8%
  • 5pm–8pm287 flights74.9%
  • 8pm–5am

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.6% of the time, against 74.9% for the evening window. That is 14 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 339 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on LAX to AUS through the year

On-time rate by calendar month85J87F79M80A72M76J80J82A94S86O80N81D
Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, May worst

September is the best month on the calendar at 94.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.5% on time and Saturday the weakest at 75.9%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

On-time rate by day of the week82.6Mon81.7Tue86.5Wed80.5Thu82.4Fri75.9Sat80.0Sun
Monday: 82.6 percent on time. Tuesday: 81.7 percent on time. Wednesday: 86.5 percent on time. Thursday: 80.5 percent on time. Friday: 82.4 percent on time. Saturday: 75.9 percent on time. Sunday: 80.0 percent on time

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 59% of the 17,000 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.

  • Carrier
    59%
  • Late-arriving aircraft
    28%
  • National Airspace System
    12%
  • Extreme weather
    1%

The largest share of delay minutes, 59%, 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 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 17,017 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.09% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.6% 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 a little over 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. 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 83.0% on time across 1,286 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 1,285 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 Delta on LAX to AUS

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 94.4% on time and May 71.9%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 1,268 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Related

Where to go next

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.