Carrier performance at one airport
OO→LAX
SkyWest Airlines at Los Angeles International
- Departures
- 40,551
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #1 of 10
SkyWest Airlines at Los Angeles earns a A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 40,551 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 40,551 at 85.5% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, SkyWest Airlines runs 5 points ahead of the 80.4% weighted average across all carriers at LAX. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
85.5%
40,144 completed departures
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
0.64%
At LAX, this carrier only
Rank here
#1
Of 10 carriers clearing the floor at LAX
These figures cover 41,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Against the competition
Every carrier at LAX, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 85.5% of the time; Hawaiian Airlines manages 71.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 987 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 40,551 | 85.5% | 72 min | 0.64% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 29,181 | 83.1% | 64 min | 0.58% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 9,294 | 81.8% | 55 min | 0.90% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 37,285 | 81.6% | 68 min | 1.06% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 3,950 | 79.2% | 74 min | 2.25% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 7,698 | 77.0% | 71 min | 1.82% | B |
| American Airlines | 29,744 | 76.3% | 89 min | 1.36% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 25,308 | 74.8% | 49 min | 0.55% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 5,505 | 71.9% | 82 min | 1.69% | C |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 987 | 71.1% | 74 min | 0.91% | C+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Hawaiian is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Route by route
Where SkyWest Airlines flies from LAX
SkyWest Airlines operates 25 routes out of LAX with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LAX to SMF · Sacramento | 3,517 | 87.8% | 74 min | 0.43% | A+ |
| LAX to SFO · San Francisco | 2,593 | 72.0% | 59 min | 1.16% | C |
| LAX to PHX · Phoenix | 2,590 | 87.2% | 59 min | 0.73% | A+ |
| LAX to SAN · San Diego | 2,253 | 86.5% | 65 min | 1.02% | A |
| LAX to TUS · Tucson | 2,114 | 83.1% | 84 min | 0.43% | B+ |
| LAX to SJC · San Jose | 2,049 | 91.4% | 55 min | 0.34% | A+ |
| LAX to RNO · Reno | 2,037 | 90.8% | 65 min | 0.34% | A+ |
| LAX to ABQ · Albuquerque | 1,718 | 87.0% | 75 min | 0.29% | A+ |
| LAX to BOI · Boise | 1,342 | 89.8% | 69 min | 0.07% | A+ |
| LAX to ASE · Aspen | 1,255 | 77.3% | 98 min | 2.47% | B |
| LAX to SEA · Seattle | 1,239 | 84.6% | 82 min | 0.65% | B+ |
| LAX to DEN · Denver | 1,231 | 81.2% | 61 min | 0.81% | B+ |
| LAX to OKC · Oklahoma City | 911 | 87.5% | 73 min | 0.88% | A+ |
| LAX to FAT · Fresno | 838 | 87.3% | 84 min | 0.60% | A+ |
| LAX to AUS · Austin | 817 | 85.6% | 58 min | 0.49% | A+ |
| LAX to MRY · Monterey | 793 | 90.7% | 52 min | 0.63% | A+ |
| LAX to ELP · El Paso | 773 | 82.9% | 99 min | 0.52% | B+ |
| LAX to SAT · San Antonio | 697 | 86.0% | 67 min | 0.29% | A+ |
| LAX to SLC · Salt Lake City | 691 | 89.6% | 87 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| LAX to SBA · Santa Barbara | 687 | 89.2% | 109 min | 1.31% | A |
| LAX to STS · Santa Rosa | 677 | 87.7% | 83 min | 2.51% | A |
| LAX to SBP · San Luis Obispo | 643 | 86.9% | 89 min | 0.31% | A+ |
| LAX to GEG · Spokane | 624 | 89.2% | 68 min | 0.32% | A+ |
| LAX to PDX · Portland | 599 | 76.2% | 87 min | 0.33% | B+ |
| LAX to JAC · Jackson | 556 | 80.3% | 61 min | 0.54% | B+ |
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 41,000 flights.
- 5am–8am1,130 flights88.7%
- 8am–11am12,106 flights87.3%
- 11am–2pm5,973 flights85.4%
- 2pm–5pm6,639 flights83.8%
- 5pm–8pm8,408 flights84.8%
- 8pm–5am6,295 flights84.4%
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 88.7% on time for the 5am–8am window against 83.8% for 2pm–5pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 12,106 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
December is the weak month at 81.4% on time, against 89.5% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 3,616 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 50%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, 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 carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 209,000 of the 417,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 417,493 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.64%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
5.4% 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 a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
40,551 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.
Put together: the carrier matters more than the hour here. SkyWest Airlines at 85.5% against Hawaiian Airlines at 71.1% is 14 points of difference, while the spread across departure windows is only 5 points. Choose the operator, then the time. 40,144 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SkyWest Airlines at LAX
How often is SkyWest Airlines at LAX delayed?
About one flight in seven arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.5% of the 40,551 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SkyWest Airlines at LAX?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 85.5% on time across 40,551 flights. Hawaiian Airlines is at the other end on 71.1%, a gap of 14 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 at LAX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 83.8%, 5 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 at LAX?
December is the weakest month at 81.4% on time, compared with 89.5% in September. Across the year that is 8 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
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.