Route reliability record
LGB→OAK
Long Beach to Oakland
- Flights
- 1,568
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 353 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 11 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 45 minutes. That rests on 1,568 LGB to OAK flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGB to OAK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 99.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 94.0%, against 88.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 112 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,561 completed flights
Avg delay
45 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.45%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
88.5% on time across 1,568 flights
These figures cover 1,568 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 13 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 LGB to OAK
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,568 | 88.5% | 45 min | 0.45% | A+ |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Long Beach to Oakland
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. LAX → SJCLos Angeles to San Jose | SkyWest Airlines | 90.3% | 90.7% | 0.39% | 8am–11am, Tue | OO 3883 18:00 |
| 2. LGB → OAKLong Beach to Oakland | Southwest Airlines | 88.1% | 88.5% | 0.45% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ONT → SJCOntario to San Jose | Southwest Airlines | 85.8% | 85.9% | 0.08% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. LGB → SJCLong Beach to San Jose | Southwest Airlines | 85.8% | 86.0% | 0.24% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 5. ONT → OAKOntario to Oakland | Southwest Airlines | 85.5% | 86.0% | 0.55% | 5am–8am, 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 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am161 flights99.4%
- 8am–11am367 flights94.8%
- 11am–2pm305 flights91.4%
- 2pm–5pm315 flights84.1%
- 5pm–8pm329 flights81.1%
- 8pm–5am91 flights75.8%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 99.4% of the time, against 75.8% for the overnight window. That is 24 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 367 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGB to OAK 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 LGB to OAK, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 99.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 75.8%, a wide gap of 23.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am99.4%
- 8–11am94.8%
- 11am–2pm91.4%
- 2–5pm84.1%
- 5–8pm81.1%
- 8pm–5am75.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 14 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
June is the worst month at 80.2% on time, 14 points below February, the best at 94.1%. 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 147 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 94.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 83.1%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 75% of the 8,125 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 75%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 2%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
75% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,125 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 75 to one. The split is drawn from 8,125 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 99.4% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.45%, 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 2.9% 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 353 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 runs 85.7% on time across 1,568 flights, within 3 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 1,568 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 OAK after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 94.1% on time and June 80.2%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,561 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGB to OAK questions
How often is LGB to OAK delayed?
About one flight in nine arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 11.5% of the 1,568 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is LGB to OAK compared with the rest of the country?
88.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 LGB to OAK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 99.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 75.8%, 24 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 June delays on LGB to OAK?
June is the weakest month at 80.2% on time, compared with 94.1% in February. Across the year that is 14 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
- OAK to LGB — the return legseparate record
- Oakland International (OAK) delay statistics
- LGB to LAS, a related route80.4%
- SAN to OAK, a related route72.9%
- LGB to SMF, a related route86.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record88.5%
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGB to OAK and OAK to LGB 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.