Carrier route record
WNLAX→AUS
Southwest Airlines · Los Angeles to Austin
- Flights
- 1,026
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 25%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest 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 roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,026 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
68.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,018 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.58%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.3%
Every carrier on LAX to AUS, 4,076 flights
These figures cover 1,026 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on LAX to AUS
Southwest flew 1,026 of the 4,076 flights on LAX to AUS, about 25% of it. Its 68.8% on time is 10 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number five 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.
| 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 (this page) | 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
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 49 points, against 19 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am351 flights90.8%
- 8am–11am103 flights56.9%
- 11am–2pm202 flights61.2%
- 2pm–5pm125 flights62.4%
- 5pm–8pm169 flights56.3%
- 8pm–5am76 flights42.1%
Scale runs 35% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 42.1% on time, against 90.8% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 351 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on LAX to AUS through the year
June is the worst month at 54.1% on time, 39 points below September, the best at 92.9%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 100 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 59.8%. 21 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 16,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
53% 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 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 53 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 16,240 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 90.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.58%, 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 costs
7.8% 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 roughly 50 minutes, 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 75.0% on time across 1,025 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,026 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 Southwest on LAX to AUS
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,026 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 68.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,018 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to AUS, every carrier
- Southwest 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%
- American Airlines on LAX to AUS68.7%
- Southwest 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.