Route reliability record
LGB→SJC
Long Beach to San Jose
- Flights
- 1,251
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 324 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route 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 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 1,251 LGB to SJC flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGB to SJC: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 97.2% of the time and Saturday flights 90.0%, against 86.0% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 87 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,248 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.24%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
86.0% on time across 1,251 flights
These figures cover 1,251 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 SJC
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 | 1,251 | 86.0% | 47 min | 0.24% | A+ |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Long Beach to San Jose
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. LAX → MRYLos Angeles to Monterey | SkyWest Airlines | 89.7% | 90.3% | 0.70% | 2pm–5pm, Tue | — |
| 3. LGB → OAKLong Beach to Oakland | Southwest Airlines | 88.1% | 88.5% | 0.45% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. ONT → SJCOntario to San Jose | Southwest Airlines | 85.8% | 85.9% | 0.08% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. LGB → SJCLong Beach to San Jose | Southwest Airlines | 85.8% | 86.0% | 0.24% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am111 flights95.5%
- 8am–11am254 flights97.2%
- 11am–2pm283 flights88.0%
- 2pm–5pm193 flights80.7%
- 5pm–8pm229 flights85.6%
- 8pm–5am181 flights67.0%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 97.2% of the time, against 67.0% for the overnight window. That is 30 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 283 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGB to SJC 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 SJC, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 97.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 67.0%, a wide gap of 30.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am95.5%
- 8–11am97.2%
- 11am–2pm88.0%
- 2–5pm80.7%
- 5–8pm85.6%
- 8pm–5am67.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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 78.6% on time, 13 points below January, the best at 91.4%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 90.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.7%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 78% of the 8,235 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 78%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 2%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
78% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,235 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 34 to one. The split is drawn from 8,235 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 97.2% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.24%, 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 3.3% 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 324 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 84.4% on time across 1,251 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 1,251 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 SJC 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. January runs 91.4% on time and June 78.6%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,248 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGB to SJC questions
How often is LGB to SJC delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.0% of the 1,251 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is LGB to SJC compared with the rest of the country?
86.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 9 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 SJC?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 97.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 67.0%, 30 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 SJC?
June is the weakest month at 78.6% on time, compared with 91.4% in January. Across the year that is 13 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
- SJC to LGB — the return legseparate record
- Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International (SJC) delay statistics
- LGB to LAS, a related route80.4%
- SAN to SJC, a related route74.5%
- LGB to SMF, a related route86.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record86.0%
- 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. LGB to SJC and SJC 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.