Is Southwest Airlines reliable?

Ranked 64 of 74 US airlines on on-time record.

120,933 flights · February 2025 – July 2026 · US Bureau of Transportation Statistics

65.98%

Arrived on time

Within 15 minutes of schedule

0.62%

Cancelled

Share of scheduled flights

55 min

When late, late by

Average across delayed arrivals

82.39%

Delays it caused itself

Rest was weather, ATC or security

Reading Southwest Airlines’ record

Most of Southwest Airlines’ delay was its own doing. Around 82% of the minutes it lost came from crew, maintenance and aircraft arriving late from earlier legs — causes inside the airline — rather than weather or air traffic control. That is the part a change of management can change, and the part that does not improve on its own.

The extremes are far apart. On KOA to HNL it arrived on time 97.26% of the time; on LAS to SFO the figure was 9.35%. Same airline, same fleet, same procedures — which is the clearest argument on this site for checking the route rather than the carrier.

Southwest Airlines sits in the bottom fifth of the 74 airlines measured.

Arrives on time 65.98%

Rarely cancels 0.62% cancelled

Short delays when late 55 min when late

Few self-inflicted delays 82.39% its own fault

Same wherever it flies ±12 pts across routes

Each axis is a percentile against the other US airlines in the same period, not an absolute score. Further out is better than most; nearer the centre is worse than most.

Southwest Airlines in five measures

An airline's headline on-time rate hides more than it shows. Two carriers can both arrive on time 75% of the time while one is late by twelve minutes and the other by an hour, or while one is evenly mediocre everywhere and the other is excellent on most routes and dreadful on a few.

These five axes pull those apart. Each is scored against the other US airlines in the same period rather than on an absolute scale, because on-time rates cluster tightly enough that raw numbers would draw every carrier as the same shape.

Same everywhere is the one worth reading twice: it measures how far Southwest Airlines's on-time rate moves from route to route. A carrier scoring low there has an average propped up by routes you may not be flying.

Its most reliable routes

Its worst routes

How Southwest Airlines compares

Air Malta 87 1.6%

China Eastern Airlines 86 1.6%

Air China 84 1.5%

SAS 84 1.5%

Thai Airways 81 1.5%

Delta Air Lines 82 1.5%

Icelandair 83 1.5%

Air Europa 80 1.4%

Japan Airlines 81 1.5%

Alaska Airlines 81 1.5%

Norwegian 80 1.5%

Virgin Atlantic 82 1.5%

Iberia 80 1.4%

Austrian Airlines 80 1.4%

Wizz Air 78 1.4%

KLM Cityhopper 78 1.4%

Wizz Air UK 78 1.4%

airBaltic 76 1.4%

British Airways 79 1.4%

Singapore Airlines 77 1.4%

Wizz Air Malta 76 1.4%

Vueling 77 1.4%

BA CityFlyer 77 1.4%

Turkish Airlines 76 1.4%

SkyWest Airlines 78 1.4%

Virgin Australia 78 1.4%

Qantas 79 1.4%

Republic Airways 81 1.5%

Loganair 79 1.4%

United Airlines 75 1.4%

easyJet 74 1.3%

Ryanair UK 73 1.3%

Aegean Airlines 74 1.3%

JetBlue Airways 75 1.4%

Envoy Air 79 1.4%

Emerald Airlines UK 77 1.4%

Ryanair 72 1.3%

QantasLink 79 1.4%

Aer Lingus 75 1.4%

Ethiopian Airlines 72 1.3%

Air Canada 76 1.4%

Eurowings 73 1.3%

Air Transat 71 1.3%

Jetstar 74 1.3%

LOT Polish Airlines 71 1.3%

Qatar Airways 77 1.4%

Lufthansa 74 1.3%

Air France 71 1.3%

BA Euroflyer 69 1.2%

Etihad Airways 74 1.3%

Jet2 68 1.2%

SunExpress 69 1.3%

Allegiant Air 69 1.2%

Frontier Airlines 71 1.3%

Gulf Air 79 1.4%

Virgin Australia Regional Airlines 70 1.3%

Emirates 73 1.3%

easyJet Switzerland 73 1.3%

Finnair 74 1.3%

KLM 72 1.3%

Rex Airlines 72 1.3%

American Airlines 71 1.3%

Swiss International Air Lines 68 1.2%

Southwest Airlines 66 1.2%

easyJet Europe 72 1.3%

Aurigny 73 1.3%

El Al 69 1.3%

Brussels Airlines 66 1.2%

TUI Airways 59 1.1%

PSA Airlines 72 1.3%

Blue Islands 66 1.2%

Kuwait Airways 78 1.4%

Royal Air Maroc 55 1.0%

Air India 47 0.8%

Figures cover February 2025 – July 2026 and are counted from the regulators' own published files. A grade describes the past and is not a prediction about a particular flight, nor a safety rating. How the grade is calculated →