Carrier route record
WNLAS→FAT
Southwest Airlines · Las Vegas to Fresno
- Flights
- 1,072
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 63%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on LAS to FAT sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,072 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on LAS to FAT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,065 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
77.0%
Every carrier on LAS to FAT, 1,713 flights
These figures cover 1,072 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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
Southwest against every carrier on LAS to FAT
Southwest flew 1,072 of the 1,713 flights on LAS to FAT, most of the route. Its 74.0% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Allegiant at 82.1% to Southwest at 74.0%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allegiant Air | 641 | 82.1% | 79 min | 0.62% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,072 | 74.0% | 51 min | 0.65% | C+ |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 27 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am282 flights87.9%
- 11am–2pm163 flights81.6%
- 2pm–5pm218 flights60.6%
- 5pm–8pm153 flights76.7%
- 8pm–5am256 flights63.4%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.9% of the time, against 60.6% for the afternoon window. That is 27 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 282 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on LAS to FAT through the year
June is the worst month at 56.2% on time, 30 points below January, the best at 85.7%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 65.2%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on LAS to FAT runs when it is late
The 277 late arrivals split 109 under half an hour, 88 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 80 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early245 flights23.0%
- Within 15 min543 flights51.0%
- 15–29 min late109 flights10.2%
- 30–59 min late88 flights8.3%
- 1–2 hours late60 flights5.6%
- 2+ hours late20 flights1.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,065 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 391 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 128 still arrived on time. Only 14 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on LAS to FAT
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 December 2025, 4 hours 14 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 20 December 2025 | 4 hours 14 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 October 2025 | 3 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 August 2026 | 3 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 June 2026 | 3 hours 11 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 October 2025 | 2 hours 45 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 14,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 5%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
60% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 60 to one. The split is drawn from 14,128 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,863 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.65%, 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
7.5% 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 about 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 259 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.1% on time across 1,072 flights, 11 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,072 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 Southwest on LAS to FAT
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,072 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 74.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,065 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAS to FAT, every carrier
- Southwest on FAT to LAS, the return leg
- Allegiant Air on LAS to FAT82.1%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.