PlainFlights

SFO vs LAX - Airport Comparison

Select two airports to compare on-time performance, delays, cancellations, and top routes using U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) data (2020–2025) across all 50 states. See our methodology for how metrics are computed.

Airport A
SFO

San Francisco, CA

San Francisco, California

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Airport B
LAX

Los Angeles, CA

Los Angeles, California

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Key Performance Metrics

BTS on-time performance data, 2020–2025 cumulative.

Metric SFO LAX
On-Time Rate (higher is better) 81.0% 82.8%
Avg Delay (lower is better) 72.5 min 72.9 min
Delay Rate (lower is better) 19.0% 17.2%
Cancellation Rate (lower is better) 0.85% 0.74%
Total Flights 1,466,784 2,137,032
Delayed Flights 278,538 366,815
Cancelled Flights 12,405 15,795
Top Delay Cause Late Aircraft Carrier

✓ / ▲ indicates the more favorable value. Data: BTS On-Time Performance, 2020–2025.

Delay Cause Breakdown

SFO - San Francisco, CA

Late Aircraft 42.0%
Carrier 36.9%
NAS 17.9%
Weather 3.2%
Security 0.1%

LAX - Los Angeles, CA

Carrier 41.7%
Late Aircraft 36.3%
NAS 18.5%
Weather 3.3%
Security 0.2%

Top Routes

Top routes from SFO

Route Flights On-Time
LAX → SFO
San Francisco
63,553 78.7%
SFO → LAX
Los Angeles
63,540 82.9%
SFO → SEA
Seattle
37,671 82.1%
SEA → SFO
San Francisco
37,651 79.1%
JFK → SFO
San Francisco
35,481 81.9%
SFO → JFK
New York
35,481 83.2%

Top routes from LAX

Route Flights On-Time
LAX → SFO
San Francisco
63,553 78.7%
SFO → LAX
Los Angeles
63,540 82.9%
LAX → LAS
Las Vegas
55,240 78.9%
LAS → LAX
Los Angeles
55,149 79.4%
JFK → LAX
Los Angeles
53,628 81.3%
LAX → JFK
New York
53,619 81.8%

Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), On-Time Performance Data (2020–2025) Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), On-Time Performance Data (2020–2025) On-time rates exclude cancelled and diverted flights. PlainFlights is not affiliated with BTS or the DOT

Every figure on PlainFlights is rendered directly from BTS On-Time Performance data, no number is typed in by an editor. This tool queries live on-time, delay, and cancellation figures for the two selected airports from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.