Route reliability record
LAX→SLC
Los Angeles to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 4,195
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 590 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route earns an 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 10 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 4,195 LAX to SLC flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 2,457 at 88.4% on time.
Best time to fly LAX to SLC: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 90.8%, against 87.2% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 88.4% on time across 2,457 flights.
Key figures
On time
87.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,167 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.50%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
88.4% on time across 2,457 flights
These figures cover 4,195 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to SLC
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 88.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 79.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 371 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 90.9% | 29 min | 4.35% | A− |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 149 | 88.6% | 65 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,457 | 88.4% | 80 min | 0.53% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 720 | 88.0% | 69 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 475 | 85.3% | 75 min | 1.26% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 371 | 79.7% | 47 min | 0.27% | B+ |
Delta leads Southwest by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on LAX to SLC
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Los Angeles to Salt Lake City
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LGB → SLCLong Beach to Salt Lake City | SkyWest Airlines | 92.1% | 92.1% | 0.00% | 5am–8am, Mon | OO 3793 16:50 |
| 2. BUR → SLCBurbank to Salt Lake City | Delta Air Lines | 91.2% | 91.9% | 0.71% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 2582 07:00 |
| 3. BUR → SLCBurbank to Salt Lake City | SkyWest Airlines | 91.2% | 91.7% | 0.53% | 5am–8am, Tue | OO 3693 16:50 |
| 4. ONT → SLCOntario to Salt Lake City | Delta Air Lines | 90.1% | 91.1% | 1.15% | 8am–11am, Tue | DL 2708 06:00 |
| 5. LAX → SLCLos Angeles to Salt Lake City | SkyWest Airlines | 88.0% | 88.0% | 0.00% | 5pm–8pm, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 21 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am775 flights93.6%
- 8am–11am853 flights87.5%
- 11am–2pm1,221 flights87.5%
- 2pm–5pm207 flights79.2%
- 5pm–8pm1,076 flights84.4%
- 8pm–5am63 flights73.0%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.6% of the time, against 73.0% for the overnight window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 1,221 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAX to SLC by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On LAX to SLC, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 73.0%, a wide gap of 20.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.6%
- 8–11am87.5%
- 11am–2pm87.5%
- 2–5pm79.2%
- 5–8pm84.4%
- 8pm–5am73.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 4,195 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
August is the worst month at 81.4% on time, 11 points below October, the best at 92.0%. 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 423 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 90.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 83.5%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 56% of the 38,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 38,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 26 to one. The split is drawn from 38,384 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 21,000 of the 38,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.50%, 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 actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.6% 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.
The 590 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 85.6% on time across 4,196 flights, within 2 points 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 4,195 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SLC after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: avoid the 8pm–5am departure. It runs 73.0% on time against 93.6% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 21 points is the largest single thing you control here. Delta Air Lines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 4,167 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to SLC questions
How often is LAX to SLC delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 12.8% of the 4,195 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to SLC?
Delta Air Lines leads at 88.4% on time across 2,457 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 79.7%, a gap of 9 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 LAX to SLC?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 73.0%, 21 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 August delays on LAX to SLC?
August is the weakest month at 81.4% on time, compared with 92.0% in October. Across the year that is 11 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
- SLC to LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- United Airlines on LAX to SLC88.6%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to SLC88.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on LAX to SLC88.0%
- Frontier Airlines on LAX to SLC85.3%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to SLC79.7%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record90.9%
- United Airlines on-time record88.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record88.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. LAX to SLC and SLC to LAX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.