Route reliability record
FAT→LAX
Fresno to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 967
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 209 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 967 FAT to LAX flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly FAT to LAX: a 2pm–5pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.9%, against 84.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 74 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 962 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.52%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
84.5% on time across 768 flights
These figures cover 967 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on FAT to LAX
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 199 | 85.4% | 60 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 768 | 84.5% | 68 min | 0.65% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on FAT to LAX
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am347 flights84.3%
- 8am–11am62 flights78.0%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm364 flights89.6%
- 5pm–8pm194 flights78.4%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 89.6% on time, ahead of 8am–11am at 78.0%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FAT to LAX by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On FAT to LAX, the best departure window is 2pm–5pm at 89.6% on time and the worst is 8am–11am at 78.0%, a wide gap of 11.6 points. All US flights leaving 2pm–5pm ran 71.9%.
- 5–8am84.3%
- 8–11am78.0%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm89.6%
- 5–8pm78.4%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
July is the worst month at 73.6% on time, 21 points below September, the best at 94.1%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. November was the busiest month here, with 110 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 82.3%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 51% of the 9,806 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,982 of the 9,806 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,806 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.52%, below the national 1.89% 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 209 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 2pm–5pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 86.3% on time across 964 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 967 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in LAX after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 967 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 84.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 962 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FAT to LAX questions
How often is FAT to LAX delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.3% of the 967 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is FAT to LAX compared with the rest of the country?
84.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on FAT to LAX?
The 2pm–5pm departure window is the strongest at 89.6% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 78.0%, 12 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 July delays on FAT to LAX?
July is the weakest month at 73.6% on time, compared with 94.1% in September. Across the year that is 21 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
- LAX to FAT — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- United Airlines on FAT to LAX85.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on FAT to LAX84.5%
- FAT to SAN, a related route73.2%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- FAT to LAS, a related route81.6%
- United Airlines on-time record85.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record84.5%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. FAT to LAX and LAX to FAT are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.