Route reliability record
LAS→BUR
Las Vegas to Burbank
- Flights
- 4,185
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 223 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 2 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 4,185 flights, of which Spirit Airlines flew 909 at 87.6% 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
79.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,120 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.34%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Spirit
87.6% on time across 909 flights
These figures cover 4,185 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 LAS to BUR
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Spirit Airlines arrives on time 87.6% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 77.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 3,163 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines | 909 | 87.6% | 75 min | 2.31% | A |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 113 | 81.2% | 111 min | 0.88% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 3,163 | 77.6% | 54 min | 1.07% | B |
Spirit leads Southwest by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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 26 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am622 flights92.2%
- 8am–11am805 flights87.5%
- 11am–2pm751 flights81.9%
- 2pm–5pm872 flights74.4%
- 5pm–8pm711 flights73.3%
- 8pm–5am424 flights66.2%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.2% of the time, against 66.2% for the overnight window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 872 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 14 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.
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 72.7%. March is the strongest month at 86.7%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 14 points. August was the busiest month here, with 399 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.9%. 11 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 48% of the 48,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
48% 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 48,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 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 47,969 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 92.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.34% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.5% 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 80.8% on time across 4,203 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 4,185 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: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 86.7% on time and October 72.7%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of October before you think about anything else. 4,120 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAS to BUR questions
How often is LAS to BUR 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 20.2% of the 4,185 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LAS to BUR?
Spirit Airlines leads at 87.6% on time across 909 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 77.6%, a gap of 10 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 LAS to BUR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.2%, 26 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 October delays on LAS to BUR?
October is the weakest month at 72.7% on time, compared with 86.7% in March. Across the year that is 14 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
- BUR to LAS — the return legseparate record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on-time record87.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record81.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.6%
- 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. LAS to BUR and BUR to LAS 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.