Route reliability record
MKE→LAS
Milwaukee to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 1,033
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,524 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That rests on 1,033 MKE to LAS flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly MKE to LAS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.9%, against 81.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,021 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.06%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
81.1% on time across 1,003 flights
These figures cover 1,033 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 MKE to LAS
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 6 | 100.0% | — | 16.67% | A− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,003 | 81.1% | 53 min | 0.90% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 24 | 73.9% | 61 min | 4.17% | C− |
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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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am354 flights92.3%
- 8am–11am84 flights90.4%
- 11am–2pm197 flights82.1%
- 2pm–5pm124 flights74.2%
- 5pm–8pm237 flights64.8%
- 8pm–5am37 flights69.4%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.8% on time, against 92.3% 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 354 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MKE to LAS 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 MKE to LAS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 64.8%, a wide gap of 27.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.3%
- 8–11am90.4%
- 11am–2pm82.1%
- 2–5pm74.2%
- 5–8pm64.8%
- 8pm–5am69.4%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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 70.7% on time, against 85.6% in March. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 109 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 75.8%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 10,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 1%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 51 to one. The split is drawn from 10,229 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 92.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.06% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.10%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.1% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,524 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.9% on time across 1,032 flights, 8 points below 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,033 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in LAS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,033 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 81.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,021 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MKE to LAS questions
How often is MKE to LAS delayed?
About 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 19.0% of the 1,033 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is MKE to LAS compared with the rest of the country?
81.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MKE to LAS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.8%, 28 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 MKE to LAS?
December is the weakest month at 70.7% on time, compared with 85.6% in March. Across the year that is 15 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
- LAS to MKE — the return legseparate record
- Milwaukee Mitchell International (MKE) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- MKE to ORD, a related route68.4%
- LAX to LAS, a related route75.8%
- MKE to DEN, a related route78.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record81.1%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record73.9%
- 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. MKE to LAS and LAS to MKE 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.