Route reliability record
MRY→LAX
Monterey to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 852
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 266 mi
- Carriers
- 2
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 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 852 MRY to LAX flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly MRY to LAX: a 5pm–8pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 93.1%, against 87.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 102 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 847 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.59%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
87.8% on time across 791 flights
These figures cover 852 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MRY to LAX
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 61 | 88.5% | 54 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 791 | 87.8% | 58 min | 0.63% | A+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MRY to LAX
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Monterey to Los Angeles
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. SJC → LAXSan Jose to Los Angeles | SkyWest Airlines | 92.2% | 92.6% | 0.39% | 5am–8am, Thu | OO 3979 07:00 |
| 2. SJC → LAXSan Jose to Los Angeles | Delta Air Lines | 89.5% | 92.3% | 3.08% | 11am–2pm, Sun | — |
| 3. MRY → LAXMonterey to Los Angeles | SkyWest Airlines | 87.2% | 87.8% | 0.63% | 5pm–8pm, Tue (route) | OO 4717 07:00 |
| 4. SJC → SNASan Jose to Santa Ana | Southwest Airlines | 86.3% | 87.0% | 0.83% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | — |
| 5. SJC → LGBSan Jose to Long Beach | Southwest Airlines | 85.4% | 85.5% | 0.16% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am280 flights87.5%
- 8am–11am218 flights82.4%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm175 flights89.7%
- 5pm–8pm149 flights94.5%
- 8pm–5am29 flights—
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 94.5% on time. The full set of windows spans 12 points.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 852 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
January is the weak month at 80.6% on time, against 92.0% in August. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. September was the busiest month here, with 88 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 93.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 82.8%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 56% of the 5,948 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 56%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%Extreme weather
- 10%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 3,320 of the 5,948 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,948 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.59%, below the national 1.81% 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 3.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 266 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 5pm–8pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 89.9% on time across 855 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 852 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in LAX after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 852 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 87.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 847 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MRY to LAX questions
How often is MRY to LAX 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 12.2% of the 852 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MRY to LAX compared with the rest of the country?
87.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 10 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MRY to LAX?
The 5pm–8pm departure window is the strongest at 94.5% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 82.4%, 12 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 January delays on MRY to LAX?
January is the weakest month at 80.6% on time, compared with 92.0% in August. 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
- LAX to MRY — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- MRY to PHX, a related route81.7%
- SFO to LAX, a related route73.9%
- MRY to DEN, a related route93.1%
- United Airlines on-time record88.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record87.8%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. MRY to LAX and LAX to MRY 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.