Carrier route record
OOSFO→SLC
SkyWest Airlines · San Francisco to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 1,008
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 29%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on SFO to SLC sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,008 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,714 at 75.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on SFO to SLC from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 994 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.39%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
75.0%
Every carrier on SFO to SLC, 3,431 flights
These figures cover 1,008 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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
SkyWest against every carrier on SFO to SLC
SkyWest flew 1,008 of the 3,431 flights on SFO to SLC, about 29% of it. Its 75.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 75.9% to Frontier at 65.8%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 1,008 | 75.9% | 68 min | 1.39% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,714 | 75.7% | 74 min | 0.93% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 503 | 74.7% | 57 min | 0.20% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 206 | 65.8% | 76 min | 1.94% | C |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 75.7%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am6 flights—
- 8am–11am181 flights91.7%
- 11am–2pm227 flights72.1%
- 2pm–5pm223 flights68.3%
- 5pm–8pm214 flights80.8%
- 8pm–5am157 flights65.6%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.7% of the time, against 65.6% for the overnight window. That is 26 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 227 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on SFO to SLC through the year
June is the worst month at 65.0% on time, 31 points below September, the best at 95.5%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 138 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 67.8%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on SFO to SLC runs when it is late
SkyWest on SFO to SLC often beats the schedule: 317 of 994 completed flights, 32%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 240 late arrivals split 74 under half an hour, 87 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 79 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early317 flights31.9%
- Within 15 min437 flights44.0%
- 15–29 min late74 flights7.4%
- 30–59 min late87 flights8.8%
- 1–2 hours late49 flights4.9%
- 2+ hours late30 flights3.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 994 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
56 of 268 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. 28 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on SFO to SLC
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 July 2026, 14 hours 46 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The five worst days are spread across July, March, April and January, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 20 July 2026 | 14 hours 46 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 10 March 2026 | 14 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 April 2026 | 6 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 January 2026 | 5 hours 39 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 11 April 2026 | 4 hours 31 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 16,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 6,618 minutes out of 16,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 16,260 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.39% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 599 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 63.9% on time across 1,011 flights, 12 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 12 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,008 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.
What to do with this
Booking SkyWest on SFO to SLC
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,008 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 75.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 994 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to SLC, every carrier
- SkyWest on SLC to SFO, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on SFO to SLC75.7%
- United Airlines on SFO to SLC74.7%
- Frontier Airlines on SFO to SLC65.8%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.