Carrier route record
DLLAX→SJC
Delta Air Lines · Los Angeles to San Jose
- Flights
- 650
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 15%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on LAX to SJC earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 650 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 1,805 at 90.7% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, Delta's LAX to SJC record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 96 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 636 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.15%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
85.6%
Every carrier on LAX to SJC, 4,471 flights
These figures cover 650 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 17 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
Delta against every carrier on LAX to SJC
Delta flew 650 of the 4,471 flights on LAX to SJC, about 15% of it. Its 86.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 85.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 100.0% to American at 66.7%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 90.7% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 80.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,871 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,805 | 90.7% | 58 min | 0.39% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 650 | 86.9% | 59 min | 2.15% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,871 | 80.6% | 50 min | 0.91% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 138 | 80.5% | 50 min | 3.62% | B− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 6 | 66.7% | 39 min | 0.00% | C+ |
SkyWest leads Southwest by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 11 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am84 flights87.3%
- 8am–11am117 flights93.0%
- 11am–2pm60 flights89.3%
- 2pm–5pm214 flights85.8%
- 5pm–8pm33 flights81.8%
- 8pm–5am142 flights83.8%
Scale runs 75% to 100%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 93.0% of the time, against 81.8% for the evening window. That is 11 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 214 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on LAX to SJC through the year
- Jan–Mar 2026169 flights85.9%
- Apr–Jun 2026286 flights86.7%
- Jul–Sep 2026195 flights88.1%
Scale runs 75% to 95%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 86.9% on time across 650 flights.
Quarter by quarter Delta on LAX to SJC held fairly steady: 85.9% in Jan–Mar 2026, 86.7% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 88.1% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 2 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 92.0% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 80.0%, a spread of 12 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on LAX to SJC runs when it is late
Delta on LAX to SJC often beats the schedule: 375 of 636 completed flights, 59%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 83 late arrivals split 29 under half an hour, 27 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 27 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early375 flights59.0%
- Within 15 min178 flights28.0%
- 15–29 min late29 flights4.6%
- 30–59 min late27 flights4.2%
- 1–2 hours late21 flights3.3%
- 2+ hours late6 flights0.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 636 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
18 of 98 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. Only 3 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on LAX to SJC
The latest arrival of the period was on 24 June 2026, 9 hours 37 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in June 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 24 June 2026 | 9 hours 37 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 March 2026 | 2 hours 55 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 1 June 2026 | 2 hours 49 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 August 2026 | 2 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 June 2026 | 2 hours 32 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 64% of the 4,898 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 64%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 64%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,136 of the 4,898 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,898 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.15% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% 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 308 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 91.6% on time across 649 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 650 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 Delta on LAX to SJC
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 650 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 86.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 636 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to SJC, every carrier
- Delta on SJC to LAX, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on LAX to SJC90.7%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to SJC80.6%
- Frontier Airlines on LAX to SJC80.5%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International (SJC) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- 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.