Route reliability record
OAK→SLC
Oakland to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 1,621
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 588 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 11 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 1,621 OAK to SLC flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,074 at 94.1% on time.
Best time to fly OAK to SLC: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 97.5% of the time and Saturday flights 91.9%, against 87.8% 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 105 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,616 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.12%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
94.1% on time across 1,074 flights
These figures cover 1,621 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 OAK to SLC
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 94.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 75.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 547 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,074 | 94.1% | 71 min | 0.19% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 547 | 75.5% | 57 min | 0.00% | B+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 19 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 19 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on OAK 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 Oakland 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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SJC → SLCSan Jose to Salt Lake City | SkyWest Airlines | 94.0% | 94.1% | 0.15% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. OAK → SLCOakland to Salt Lake City | SkyWest Airlines | 93.9% | 94.1% | 0.19% | 5am–8am, Tue | OO 4061 05:55 |
| 3. SJC → SLCSan Jose to Salt Lake City | Delta Air Lines | 92.7% | 93.2% | 0.54% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1314 06:00 |
| 4. OAK → SLCOakland to Salt Lake City | Southwest Airlines | 75.5% | 75.5% | 0.00% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. SFO → SLCSan Francisco to Salt Lake City | Delta Air Lines | 75.0% | 75.7% | 0.93% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 1331 06:00 |
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 41 points, against 19 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am445 flights97.5%
- 8am–11am89 flights92.1%
- 11am–2pm474 flights89.4%
- 2pm–5pm72 flights81.9%
- 5pm–8pm380 flights87.9%
- 8pm–5am161 flights56.5%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.5% on time, against 97.5% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 474 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter OAK 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 OAK to SLC, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 97.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 56.5%, a wide gap of 41.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am97.5%
- 8–11am92.1%
- 11am–2pm89.4%
- 2–5pm81.9%
- 5–8pm87.9%
- 8pm–5am56.5%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 12 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.
October is the best month on the calendar at 94.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 150 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 91.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 83.1%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 44%Carrier
- 9%Extreme weather
- 4%National Airspace System
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 12,042 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,270 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.12%, 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 4.0% 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 588 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 90.2% on time across 1,621 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 1,621 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: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 94.0% on time and May 81.6%, a swing of 12 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 1,616 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
OAK to SLC questions
How often is OAK 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 12.2% of the 1,621 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on OAK to SLC?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 94.1% on time across 1,074 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 75.5%, a gap of 19 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 OAK to SLC?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 97.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 56.5%, 41 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 May delays on OAK to SLC?
May is the weakest month at 81.6% on time, compared with 94.0% in October. Across the year that is 12 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 OAK — the return legseparate record
- Oakland International (OAK) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on OAK to SLC94.1%
- Southwest Airlines on OAK to SLC75.5%
- OAK to SAN, a related route62.7%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- OAK to LAS, a related route76.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record94.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. OAK to SLC and SLC to OAK 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.