Route reliability record
BUR→LAS
Burbank to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 4,203
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 223 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 3 points 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 4,203 flights, of which Spirit Airlines flew 910 at 82.6% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,136 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.55%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Spirit
82.6% on time across 910 flights
These figures cover 4,203 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BUR to LAS
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines | 910 | 82.6% | 72 min | 2.75% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 3,180 | 80.6% | 60 min | 1.23% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 113 | 71.4% | 87 min | 0.88% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. Spirit tops the table at 82.6%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 21 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am352 flights93.7%
- 8am–11am989 flights89.6%
- 11am–2pm761 flights78.9%
- 2pm–5pm860 flights78.0%
- 5pm–8pm908 flights73.3%
- 8pm–5am333 flights73.1%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.7% of the time, against 73.1% for the overnight window. That is 21 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 989 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 4,203 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 77.0%. February is the strongest month at 86.8%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 10 points. August was the busiest month here, with 400 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.0%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 50,000 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.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%National Airspace System
- 9%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 50,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 31 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 50,036 reported delay minutes.
34% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 17,000 minutes out of 50,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.55% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.05%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.6% 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 about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 223 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 79.8% on time across 4,185 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,203 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: avoid the 8pm–5am departure. It runs 73.1% on time against 93.7% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 21 points is the largest single thing you control here. Spirit Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 4,136 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BUR to LAS questions
How often is BUR to LAS 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 19.2% of the 4,203 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BUR to LAS?
Spirit Airlines leads at 82.6% on time across 910 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 80.6%, a gap of 2 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 BUR to LAS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 73.1%, 21 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 November delays on BUR to LAS?
November is the weakest month at 77.0% on time, compared with 86.8% in February. Across the year that is 10 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
- LAS to BUR — the return legseparate record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on-time record82.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record80.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record71.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. BUR to LAS and LAS to BUR are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.