One more reason why LAX is unappreciated

Of the 100 most-delayed flights in the country last year, guess how many originate at Los Angeles International Airport? Zero. In addition, L.A. is the destination airport for just four of the 100, as reported by the WSJ. Newark was the worst airport in the U.S. to either take off or land, and the two most chronically delayed flights are Delta flights from Newark to Atlanta.

Much of the bottleneck is in Washington, D.C. Both flights out of Newark have to fly through heavily congested airspace in the Washington area, Delta says, where much of the traffic headed into and out of the Northeast meshes together, creating a choke point for the nation's air travel. One flight, Delta 2843, also suffered because the airplane used on that trip comes to Newark from Atlanta in the late afternoon, and it runs chronically late. "It's a systematic issue with Newark in the afternoon and evening," said Dave Holtz, Delta's managing director of operations. He thinks problems that have plagued New York's other two major airports, Kennedy and La Guardia, are catching up to Newark now.

Late flights into LAX are coming from Atlanta (Delta), Minneapolis (Delta), Boston (JetBlue), and Detroit (Delta). L.A. normally does quite well in on-time performance, largely because of its benign weather and its location - a lot of the service back east originates in the morning, which minimizes delays from other cities. The Journal's Scott McCartney notes that overall the number of late departures this year were up 8.6 percent through May. Late arrivals were up 9.6 percent.