Route reliability record
LAX→RNO
Los Angeles to Reno
- Flights
- 2,494
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 390 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route earns a A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 11 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 2,494 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 105 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,480 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.44%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
90.8% on time across 2,037 flights
These figures cover 2,494 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 LAX to RNO
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,037 | 90.8% | 65 min | 0.34% | A+ |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 114 | 89.5% | 45 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 343 | 71.7% | 48 min | 1.17% | C |
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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am709 flights94.8%
- 11am–2pm213 flights86.3%
- 2pm–5pm647 flights87.7%
- 5pm–8pm343 flights78.6%
- 8pm–5am582 flights86.7%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 94.8% of the time, against 78.6% for the evening window. That is 16 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 709 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 2,494 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
July is the worst month at 83.3% on time, 9 points below September, the best at 92.5%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 252 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 90.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 83.8%. 7 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. Carrier accounts for 52% of the 17,000 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.
- 52%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%Extreme weather
- 5%National Airspace System
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 17,378 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 8,997 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.44%, below the national 1.81% 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 3.4% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 390 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 runs 87.3% on time across 2,494 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 2,494 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 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 78.6% on time against 94.8% for the 8am–11am slot, and that 16 points is the largest single thing you control here. SkyWest Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 2,480 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to RNO questions
How often is LAX to RNO delayed?
About one flight in eight arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 11.9% of the 2,494 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is LAX to RNO compared with the rest of the country?
88.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 11 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAX to RNO?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 94.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 78.6%, 16 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 LAX to RNO?
July is the weakest month at 83.3% on time, compared with 92.5% in September. Across the year that is 9 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
- RNO to LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record90.8%
- United Airlines on-time record89.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record71.7%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. LAX to RNO and RNO to LAX 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.