Route reliability record
LAX→SAT
Los Angeles to San Antonio
- Flights
- 1,814
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,211 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,814 LAX to SAT flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 697 at 85.9% on time.
Best time to fly LAX to SAT: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.0%, against 81.6% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 43 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,803 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.44%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
85.9% on time across 697 flights
These figures cover 1,814 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to SAT
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 697 | 85.9% | 68 min | 0.29% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 679 | 85.9% | 74 min | 0.29% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 101 | 79.4% | 93 min | 3.96% | B− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 337 | 65.0% | 40 min | 0.00% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 85.9%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on LAX to SAT
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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Los Angeles to San Antonio
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 → SATLos Angeles to San Antonio | SkyWest Airlines | 85.7% | 85.9% | 0.29% | 8am–11am, Thu | OO 4962 18:21 |
| 2. LAX → SATLos Angeles to San Antonio | Delta Air Lines | 85.7% | 85.9% | 0.29% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 2568 09:55 |
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 25 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am15 flights—
- 8am–11am892 flights86.8%
- 11am–2pm120 flights61.7%
- 2pm–5pm110 flights63.3%
- 5pm–8pm677 flights81.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 61.7% on time against 86.8% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 892 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAX to SAT 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 SAT, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 86.8% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 61.7%, a wide gap of 25.1 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am86.8%
- 11am–2pm61.7%
- 2–5pm63.3%
- 5–8pm81.1%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
October is the best month on the calendar at 91.6% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. December was the busiest month here, with 181 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.7%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 49% of the 20,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Carrier
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 40 to one. The split is drawn from 20,267 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,876 of the 20,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.44%, 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
5.8% 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 1,211 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 85.9% on time across 1,814 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,814 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 SAT 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. October runs 91.6% on time and May 74.5%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 1,803 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to SAT questions
How often is LAX to SAT delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.4% of the 1,814 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 SAT?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 85.9% on time across 697 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 85.9%, a gap of half a point. 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 SAT?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.8% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 61.7%, 25 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 SAT?
May is the weakest month at 74.5% on time, compared with 91.6% in October. Across the year that is 17 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
- SAT to LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- San Antonio International (SAT) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on LAX to SAT85.9%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to SAT85.9%
- Spirit Airlines on LAX to SAT79.4%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to SAT65.0%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- DFW to SAT, a related route67.8%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record85.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record85.9%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record79.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. LAX to SAT and SAT to LAX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed LAX to SAT’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.