Route reliability record
MCI→LAX
Kansas City to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 1,337
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,363 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,337 MCI to LAX flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 616 at 91.8% on time.
Best time to fly MCI to LAX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.8%, against 82.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 52 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,330 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.45%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
91.8% on time across 616 flights
These figures cover 1,337 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MCI to LAX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 91.8% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 69.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 548 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 141 | 94.3% | 58 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 616 | 91.8% | 83 min | 0.49% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 32 | 81.2% | 91 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 548 | 69.0% | 51 min | 0.55% | C+ |
The spread between Delta and Southwest is 23 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 23 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCI to LAX
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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Kansas City to Los Angeles
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. MCI → LAXKansas City to Los Angeles | Delta Air Lines | 91.4% | 91.8% | 0.49% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 1517 15:55 |
| 2. MCI → LAXKansas City to Los Angeles | Southwest Airlines | 68.6% | 69.0% | 0.55% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 38 points, against 23 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am396 flights92.1%
- 8am–11am43 flights81.0%
- 11am–2pm34 flights73.5%
- 2pm–5pm592 flights88.8%
- 5pm–8pm113 flights59.3%
- 8pm–5am159 flights54.1%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.1% on time, against 92.1% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 592 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCI to LAX 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 MCI to LAX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 54.1%, a wide gap of 38.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.1%
- 8–11am81.0%
- 11am–2pm73.5%
- 2–5pm88.8%
- 5–8pm59.3%
- 8pm–5am54.1%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
December is the weak month at 70.5% on time, against 90.9% in January. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. June was the busiest month here, with 150 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.9%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 14,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 13,804 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,957 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.45%, 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
5.3% 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 1,363 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 runs 82.3% on time across 1,349 flights, within half a point 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 1,337 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 LAX 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. January runs 90.9% on time and December 70.5%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,330 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCI to LAX questions
How often is MCI to LAX delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.5% of the 1,337 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MCI to LAX?
Delta Air Lines leads at 91.8% on time across 616 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 69.0%, a gap of 23 points. 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 MCI to LAX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 54.1%, 38 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 December delays on MCI to LAX?
December is the weakest month at 70.5% on time, compared with 90.9% in January. Across the year that is 20 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
- LAX to MCI — the return legseparate record
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on MCI to LAX94.3%
- Delta Air Lines on MCI to LAX91.8%
- Southwest Airlines on MCI to LAX69.0%
- MCI to DEN, a related route78.1%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- MCI to ORD, a related route74.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record94.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record91.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record81.2%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MCI to LAX and LAX to MCI are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.