Carrier route record
WNSAT→LAX
Southwest Airlines · San Antonio to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 337
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 19%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on SAT to LAX sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 337 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 697 at 90.3% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on SAT to LAX runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 52 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 337 completed flights
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
85.9%
Every carrier on SAT to LAX, 1,814 flights
These figures cover 337 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on SAT to LAX
Southwest flew 337 of the 1,814 flights on SAT to LAX, about 19% of it. Its 72.1% on time is 14 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 85.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 90.3% to Southwest at 72.1%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points 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 | 90.3% | 122 min | 0.29% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 679 | 88.8% | 107 min | 0.29% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 101 | 82.5% | 77 min | 3.96% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample | 337 | 72.1% | 49 min | 0.00% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 90.3%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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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 20 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm161 flights74.5%
- 2pm–5pm138 flights73.9%
- 5pm–8pm31 flights54.8%
- 8pm–5am6 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.8% on time, against 74.5% for the 11am–2pm 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 161 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on SAT to LAX through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 93.3% 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 33 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 82.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.0%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on SAT to LAX runs when it is late
The 94 late arrivals split 40 under half an hour, 27 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 27 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early50 flights14.8%
- Within 15 min193 flights57.3%
- 15–29 min late40 flights11.9%
- 30–59 min late27 flights8.0%
- 1–2 hours late20 flights5.9%
- 2+ hours late7 flights2.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 337 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 140 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 51 still arrived on time. Only 5 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on SAT to LAX
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 June 2026, 3 hours 15 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 7 June 2026 | 3 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 June 2026 | 3 hours 7 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 October 2025 | 3 hours 4 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 12 July 2026 | 2 hours 10 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 12 April 2026 | 2 hours 9 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 63% of the 4,597 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 63%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 6%National Airspace System
63% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,597 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 63 to one. The split is drawn from 4,597 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.0% 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 50 minutes, 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 65.0% on time across 337 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 337 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 SAT to LAX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 337 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 72.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 337 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SAT to LAX, every carrier
- Southwest on LAX to SAT, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on SAT to LAX90.3%
- Delta Air Lines on SAT to LAX88.8%
- Spirit Airlines on SAT to LAX82.5%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- San Antonio International (SAT) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.