Carrier route record

DLLAX→SAT

Delta Air Lines · Los Angeles to San Antonio

Flights: 684
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 36%
Carriers: 4

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

Delta on LAX to SAT earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 684 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Delta's LAX to SAT record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 65 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

84.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 681 completed flights

Avg delay

77 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.44%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

82.1%

Every carrier on LAX to SAT, 1,881 flights

These figures cover 684 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 SAT

Delta flew 684 of the 1,881 flights on LAX to SAT, about 36% of it. Its 84.1% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 82.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 86.0% to Southwest at 68.5%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.

On-time performance by carrier on LAX to SAT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	697	86.0%	67 min	0.29%	A+
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	163	85.4%	85 min	2.45%	A
Delta Air Lines (this page)	684	84.1%	77 min	0.44%	B+
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	337	68.5%	43 min	0.00%	C+

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on LAX to SAT

DL 268618:5981.1% · 319 flights

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 684 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am365 flights86.8%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm319 flights81.1%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 75% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 86.8% on time for the 8am–11am window against 81.1% for 5pm–8pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on LAX to SAT through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.March best, August worst

August is the worst month at 75.0% on time, 18 points below March, the best at 93.1%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 61 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.5%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 50% of the 8,273 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
50%
Late-arriving aircraft
44%
National Airspace System
6%

44% 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 8,273 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 44 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 8,273 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, 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 4,164 of the 8,273 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.44%, 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

7.3% 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 1,211 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. 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 89.4% on time across 684 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 684 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 Delta on LAX to SAT

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 684 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 84.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 681 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

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.

Key figures