Southwest Airlines on-time performance

Leaving on time and arriving on time are two different numbers

Pushed back on time

75.2% Left the gate less than 15 minutes behind the scheduled time.

Reached the gate on time

78.5% Arrived less than 15 minutes behind the scheduled time.

Cancelled

0.8% Share of scheduled flights that never flew.

Typical delay when late

54 min Averaged over flights 15 minutes or more behind.

An airline can leave late and still arrive on time if the schedule has padding in it, or leave on time and lose the margin in the air. A cancelled flight is neither on time nor late — it drops out of both rates entirely, which is why the cancellation figure has to be read alongside them rather than after them.

What the delays were put down to

Airlines file a reason with every arrival running 15 minutes late or more. The delay minutes on late Southwest Airlines arrivals break down with 51.4% put down to late-arriving aircraft and 27.7% to airline operations.

Late-arriving aircraft is the knock-on category: the plane came in late, so it went out late again. It is why a 7am problem in Newark is still a problem in Denver at dinnertime, and why it is usually the biggest slice on the bar.

Month by month, July 2023–June 2026

The same figure as the board row above, one month at a time. Three years is enough to show the summer trough and the autumn recovery repeating, which is the point of plotting it rather than quoting a single month.

Where Southwest Airlines flies from most

Top ten airports by departures. The on-time share here is departure-based, so it matches this airline’s row in each airport’s own table.

Against the rest of the industry

One airline in isolation is hard to read. The comparison table puts all 15 reporting carriers side by side on the same three measures.

Questions about Southwest Airlines

How often is Southwest Airlines on time?

78.5% of the 4,201,435 flights Southwest Airlines actually flew arrived less than 15 minutes behind schedule, July 2023 through June 2026. On departures the figure was 75.2%.

Why are Southwest Airlines’ departure and arrival numbers different?

Departure on time means pushback less than 15 minutes behind schedule; arrival on time means reaching the gate less than 15 minutes behind schedule. Southwest Airlines parked on time more often than it pushed back — schedule padding turning a late departure back into an on-time arrival.

What is Southwest Airlines’ cancellation rate?

0.8% of scheduled Southwest Airlines flights were cancelled, July 2023 through June 2026. Cancellations sit outside the on-time rate entirely: a cancelled flight is neither on time nor late, which is why the two numbers have to be read together.

What causes Southwest Airlines delays?

Of the delay minutes on late Southwest Airlines arrivals, 51.4% were filed as late-arriving aircraft and 27.7% as airline operations. Severe weather accounted for 2.6%, though that is not the whole weather story: conditions bad enough to slow the system as a whole are filed under air traffic and airport volume instead.

Where does Southwest Airlines fly from most?

DEN, with 281,472 departures over July 2023 through June 2026, and 67.3% of the ones that flew left on time. The full top ten is in the table on this page, each linked to that airport’s own record.