OnTimeStats

Airline on-time performance

Southwest Airlines

Data through May 2026Source: US DOT · BTS
← All airlines
On-time rate76%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay40 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled0.9%of scheduled flights

based on 1,392,049 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

Arrival performance

How this airline's flights land

System-wide arrival outcomes across every route this carrier flies.

76%of this carrier's flights arrived on time
(within 15 min of schedule)
  • On time76%
  • 15–59 min late16%
  • 1–2 hr late4%
  • 2 hr+ late2%
  • Cancelled or diverted1%

Arrival outcomes for this carrier's flights. Last segment = cancelled or diverted (diverted flights are not separately tracked for carriers).

Bad day: 1 in 10 flights arrives more than 40 min late.

Over time

On-time trend

By season

On-time rate by month

When flights don't go

Why flights were cancelled

  • Airline20%
  • Weather58%
  • Air traffic (NAS)22%
  • Security0%

Most cancellations here are attributed to Weather. Shares are among 12,436 cancellations with a reported cause (BTS reports causes from June 2003).

Route rankings

Most reliable

Best routes

OGG → PHX97%LIH → LAS96%OGG → LAS96%LIH → OAK96%OGG → OAK96%KOA → LAS95%LIH → HNL94%KOA → HNL94%OGG → HNL93%ITO → HNL93%

Least reliable

Worst routes

BUR → SFO43%MDW → SFO50%DCA → LAS52%LAS → SFO53%SFO → BUR55%SFO → SAN55%ORD → PHX55%DEN → SFO55%DCA → AUS55%JAX → DAL56%

Carrier lineage

AirTran Airways

AirTran merged into Southwest

Side by side

Compare this airline

Compare with Delta Air Lineshead-to-head on-time→Compare with American Airlineshead-to-head on-time→Compare with SkyWest Airlineshead-to-head on-time→Compare with United Airlineshead-to-head on-time→

Keep exploring

Airports on its routes

HOU airporton-time performance→DAL airporton-time performance→OAK airporton-time performance→LAX airporton-time performance→

Keep exploring

Related guide

Best airlines for on-time arrivalsguide→

Methodology

A flight is on time when it arrives within 15 minutes of schedule — the US DOT / BTS standard. Median and p90(the “1-in-10 bad day”) are read from the full arrival-delay distribution, never averaged across periods.

Figures cover a carrier’s own BTS-coded flights. Cells below ~200 flights are flagged as limited data. All numbers are pre-computed from public BTS On-Time Performance data.