Regional operator · on-time record

OO

SkyWest Airlines

Flights: 852,935
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Airports: 25
US rank: #4 by volume

SkyWest Airlines lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 852,935 flights, of which Salt Lake City (SLC) flew 36,254 at 90.7% on time.

Salt Lake City (SLC) is the most reliable of the 25 airports covered here at 90.7% on time across 36,254 flights.

SkyWest Airlines flies under mainline brands rather than selling tickets in its own name, so a flight in this record may have been booked as American, Delta or United. The DOT reports it under the operating carrier, which is why it appears here separately.

On time

79.0%

National average is 77.6%

Avg delay

88 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

1.77%

National rate is 1.81%

Largest base

ORD

76,556 departures, 65.9% on time

These figures cover 853,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Airport by airport

Where SkyWest Airlines runs well, and where it does not

The choice of airport is not cosmetic here. Salt Lake City (SLC) arrives on time 90.7% of the time; Chicago (ORD) manages 65.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 76,556 flights means less than a ten-point one.

SkyWest Airlines on-time performance by departure airport
Airport	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
ORD · Chicago	76,556	65.9%	88 min	3.84%	C−
DEN · Denver	75,349	80.0%	77 min	1.13%	B
LAX · Los Angeles	40,551	85.5%	72 min	0.64%	A+
SLC · Salt Lake City	36,254	90.7%	65 min	0.43%	A+
SFO · San Francisco	32,078	76.3%	74 min	1.26%	B
SEA · Seattle	29,109	86.1%	58 min	0.71%	A+
DTW · Detroit	28,504	73.9%	97 min	2.07%	C
MSP · Minneapolis	27,320	80.1%	87 min	1.51%	B
PHX · Phoenix	27,209	81.0%	78 min	0.81%	B+
DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	23,089	77.2%	80 min	3.36%	B−
SAN · San Diego	14,952	79.8%	58 min	1.77%	B
IAH · Houston	14,351	76.8%	92 min	1.16%	B
BOI · Boise	10,632	85.7%	71 min	0.38%	A+
PDX · Portland	10,519	85.4%	64 min	0.55%	A+
SMF · Sacramento	9,236	83.7%	68 min	0.82%	B+
TUS · Tucson	8,262	84.8%	82 min	0.47%	B+
AUS · Austin	8,035	80.5%	86 min	0.86%	B+
ASE · Aspen	8,022	70.6%	106 min	6.31%	C−
OKC · Oklahoma City	8,016	81.4%	88 min	1.46%	B
MKE · Milwaukee	7,246	71.3%	95 min	3.09%	C−
ATL · Atlanta	7,222	74.7%	106 min	2.26%	C
FAT · Fresno	7,217	83.0%	75 min	0.80%	B+
SJC · San Jose	6,866	88.4%	64 min	0.44%	A+
GEG · Spokane	6,602	85.7%	67 min	0.74%	A+
PSP · Palm Springs	5,832	79.5%	76 min	0.89%	B+

Aspen (ASE) cancels 6.3% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.

Route by route

Busiest SkyWest Airlines routes

These are the 25 routes SkyWest Airlines flies most often, each against its network-wide 79.0%. Route-level variation inside a single airline is routinely wider than the gap between two airlines nationally.

Busiest SkyWest Airlines routes by flight volume
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
ORD to MKE	4,933	63.7%	93 min	4.64%	D−
MKE to ORD	4,932	67.3%	94 min	4.12%	C−
SNA to SFO	3,564	71.2%	67 min	1.63%	C
SFO to SNA	3,521	79.4%	60 min	1.42%	B
LAX to SMF	3,517	87.8%	74 min	0.43%	A+
SMF to LAX	3,517	90.1%	86 min	0.45%	A+
PDX to SEA	3,501	85.2%	59 min	0.54%	A+
SEA to PDX	3,343	86.1%	53 min	0.51%	A+
DEN to COS	3,283	76.5%	72 min	1.89%	B
COS to DEN	3,282	81.3%	75 min	1.68%	B
SEA to BOI	3,081	87.2%	52 min	0.19%	A+
SEA to GEG	3,058	87.7%	55 min	1.05%	A
GEG to SEA	3,020	88.2%	60 min	0.99%	A+
BOI to SEA	2,929	86.2%	58 min	0.27%	A+
ASE to DEN	2,716	75.2%	102 min	5.15%	B−
DEN to ASE	2,715	74.8%	96 min	5.23%	C−
SBN to ORD	2,692	65.1%	95 min	3.79%	C−
ORD to SBN	2,692	62.5%	87 min	4.27%	D−
LAX to SFO	2,593	72.0%	59 min	1.16%	C
PHX to LAX	2,590	90.2%	67 min	0.73%	A+
LAX to PHX	2,590	87.2%	59 min	0.73%	A+
SFO to LAX	2,588	76.6%	60 min	1.04%	B
CPR to DEN	2,570	81.9%	88 min	0.93%	B+
DEN to CPR	2,570	77.4%	79 min	1.01%	B
ORD to DTW	2,433	64.0%	91 min	3.41%	D−

Departure window

The best time of day to fly SkyWest Airlines

Departure time matters more here than the choice of airport. The gap between the best and worst window is 14 points, against 25 points between the best and worst airport. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am121,568 flights86.7%
8am–11am166,104 flights82.2%
11am–2pm163,535 flights80.1%
2pm–5pm165,404 flights75.9%
5pm–8pm148,409 flights72.3%
8pm–5am87,915 flights76.9%

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.7% of the time, against 72.3% for the evening window. That is 14 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 166,104 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

SkyWest Airlines through the calendar

Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 852,935 flights. The strip shows how much of SkyWest's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, December worst

December is the weak month at 72.9% on time, against 84.7% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. May was the busiest month here, with 75,994 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.7%. 5 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

What holds SkyWest Airlines up

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 47% of the 15.5 million delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Carrier
47%
Late-arriving aircraft
21%
National Airspace System
17%
Extreme weather
14%
Security
0%

Extreme weather accounts for 14% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 15,450,884 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two airports on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 7.28 million of the 15.5 million delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.77% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.33%.

8.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the an hour and a half kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

852,935 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.

What to do with this

Booking SkyWest Airlines

Put together: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 72.3% on time against 86.7% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 14 points is the largest single thing you control here. Salt Lake City (SLC) is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 835,094 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

SkyWest Airlines reliability questions

How often is SkyWest Airlines delayed?

About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.0% of the 852,935 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.

Which airport does SkyWest Airlines run best from?

Salt Lake City (SLC) leads at 90.7% on time across 36,254 flights. Chicago (ORD) is at the other end on 65.9%, a gap of 25 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.

What time of day has the fewest delays on SkyWest Airlines?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.3%, 14 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.

How bad are December delays on SkyWest Airlines?

December is the weakest month at 72.9% on time, compared with 84.7% in September. Across the year that is 12 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures