Carrier route record
OOLAX→SFO
SkyWest Airlines · Los Angeles to San Francisco
- Flights
- 2,515
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 22%
- Carriers
- 7
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on LAX to SFO draws a C. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 2,515 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 3,330 at 62.9% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so SkyWest on LAX to SFO runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 107 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
66.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,484 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.19%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
60.1%
Every carrier on LAX to SFO, 11,437 flights
These figures cover 2,515 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
SkyWest against every carrier on LAX to SFO
SkyWest flew 2,515 of the 11,437 flights on LAX to SFO, about 22% of it. Its 66.6% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 60.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 66.6% to Frontier at 47.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 62.9% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 47.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 395 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 2,515 | 66.6% | 58 min | 1.19% | C |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 302 | 63.9% | 76 min | 0.00% | D+ |
| United Airlines | 3,330 | 62.9% | 56 min | 0.12% | D+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,373 | 60.9% | 53 min | 1.56% | D |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,049 | 50.9% | 54 min | 0.67% | F+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,473 | 50.7% | 62 min | 0.34% | F+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 395 | 47.7% | 66 min | 2.28% | F |
The spread between United and Frontier is 15 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 15 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
SkyWest flight numbers on LAX to SFO
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Departure window
When SkyWest 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 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am300 flights84.8%
- 8am–11am460 flights57.8%
- 11am–2pm408 flights63.9%
- 2pm–5pm304 flights58.0%
- 5pm–8pm402 flights75.5%
- 8pm–5am641 flights64.8%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.8% of the time, against 57.8% for the morning 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 641 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on LAX to SFO through the year
July is the worst month at 47.7% on time, 40 points below January, the best at 87.8%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 294 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 73.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 59.2%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on LAX to SFO runs when it is late
The 829 late arrivals split 263 under half an hour, 304 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 262 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early593 flights23.9%
- Within 15 min1,062 flights42.8%
- 15–29 min late263 flights10.6%
- 30–59 min late304 flights12.2%
- 1–2 hours late196 flights7.9%
- 2+ hours late66 flights2.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 2,484 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 608 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 61 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 282 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at SFO.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on LAX to SFO
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 July 2026, 10 hours 26 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 18 July 2026 | 10 hours 26 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 July 2026 | 8 hours 56 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 April 2026 | 8 hours 20 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 20 February 2026 | 7 hours 38 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 16 March 2026 | 5 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 45% of the 48,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%National Airspace System
- 32%Carrier
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 22,000 minutes out of 48,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 47,892 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.19% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.04%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
10.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 337 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.9% on time across 2,513 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,515 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 SkyWest on LAX to SFO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 87.8% on time and July 47.7%, a swing of 40 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,484 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to SFO, every carrier
- SkyWest on SFO to LAX, the return leg
- American Airlines on LAX to SFO63.9%
- United Airlines on LAX to SFO62.9%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to SFO60.9%
- Alaska Airlines on LAX to SFO50.9%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to SFO50.7%
- Frontier Airlines on LAX to SFO47.7%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.