Carrier route record
OOIAH→LAX
SkyWest Airlines · Houston to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 408
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 8%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on IAH to LAX lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 408 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 648 at 87.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on IAH to LAX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 405 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.49%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
84.1%
Every carrier on IAH to LAX, 5,147 flights
These figures cover 408 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
SkyWest against every carrier on IAH to LAX
SkyWest flew 408 of the 5,147 flights on IAH to LAX, about 8% of it. Its 79.3% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 84.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 100.0% to Frontier at 71.8%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 648 | 87.7% | 70 min | 0.93% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 3,421 | 85.7% | 57 min | 0.20% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 408 | 79.3% | 77 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 333 | 78.9% | 71 min | 1.50% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 336 | 71.8% | 60 min | 0.89% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 87.7%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
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 408 flights.
- 5am–8am1 flights—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm94 flights83.0%
- 5pm–8pm166 flights75.0%
- 8pm–5am147 flights82.2%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 83.0% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 75.0%. 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 166 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on IAH to LAX through the year
October is the best month on the calendar at 85.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 56 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.5%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on IAH to LAX runs when it is late
SkyWest on IAH to LAX often beats the schedule: 161 of 405 completed flights, 40%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 84 late arrivals split 24 under half an hour, 28 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 32 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early161 flights39.8%
- Within 15 min160 flights39.5%
- 15–29 min late24 flights5.9%
- 30–59 min late28 flights6.9%
- 1–2 hours late18 flights4.4%
- 2+ hours late14 flights3.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 405 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
17 of 90 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. 11 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on IAH to LAX
The latest arrival of the period was on 12 April 2026, 11 hours 49 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. The five worst days are spread across April, November, January, September and May, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 12 April 2026 | 11 hours 49 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 29 November 2025 | 5 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 January 2026 | 3 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 September 2025 | 3 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 May 2026 | 3 hours 35 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 6,479 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 13%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 2.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 6,479 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,506 of the 6,479 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.49%, 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 costs
7.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,379 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 81.2% on time across 408 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. 408 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.
What to do with this
Booking SkyWest on IAH to LAX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 408 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 79.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 405 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to LAX, every carrier
- SkyWest on LAX to IAH, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on IAH to LAX87.7%
- United Airlines on IAH to LAX85.7%
- Spirit Airlines on IAH to LAX78.9%
- Frontier Airlines on IAH to LAX71.8%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- 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
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.