Route reliability record
SLC→FCA
Salt Lake City to Kalispell
- Flights
- 1,125
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 532 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 1,125 SLC to FCA flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 678 at 91.0% on time.
Best time to fly SLC to FCA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 92.8%, against 88.6% 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 113 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,113 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.71%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
91.0% on time across 678 flights
These figures cover 1,125 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
Which airline is most reliable on SLC to FCA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 91.0% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 84.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 447 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 678 | 91.0% | 59 min | 0.88% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 447 | 84.9% | 76 min | 0.45% | B+ |
SkyWest leads Delta by 6 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on SLC to FCA
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 Salt Lake City to Kalispell
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SLC → FCASalt Lake City to Kalispell | SkyWest Airlines | 90.2% | 91.0% | 0.88% | 8am–11am, Tue | OO 3798 15:40 |
| 2. SLC → FCASalt Lake City to Kalispell | Delta Air Lines | 84.5% | 84.9% | 0.45% | 8am–11am, Tue | DL 1464 21:30 |
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 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am377 flights94.6%
- 11am–2pm74 flights89.2%
- 2pm–5pm325 flights88.2%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am349 flights82.3%
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 94.6% of the time, against 82.3% for the overnight window. That is 12 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 377 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SLC to FCA 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 SLC to FCA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 94.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 82.3%, a wide gap of 12.3 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am94.6%
- 11am–2pm89.2%
- 2–5pm88.2%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am82.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
August is the worst month at 78.3% on time, 18 points below September, the best at 96.7%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 119 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 92.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 85.6%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 8,594 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 31%Extreme weather
- 15%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 31% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 5.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 8,594 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,983 of the 8,594 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.71%, 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 3.8% 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 532 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 89.4% on time across 1,125 flights, within about a point 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 1,125 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 FCA 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. September runs 96.7% on time and August 78.3%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,113 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SLC to FCA questions
How often is SLC to FCA 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 11.4% of the 1,125 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SLC to FCA?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 91.0% on time across 678 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 84.9%, a gap of 6 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 SLC to FCA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 94.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 82.3%, 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 August delays on SLC to FCA?
August is the weakest month at 78.3% on time, compared with 96.7% in September. Across the year that is 18 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
- FCA to SLC — the return legseparate record
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on SLC to FCA91.0%
- Delta Air Lines on SLC to FCA84.9%
- SLC to DEN, a related route79.0%
- DEN to FCA, a related route81.6%
- SLC to PHX, a related route83.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record91.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record84.9%
- Flying to ski country: which routes into the mountains run on time
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
Direction matters. SLC to FCA and FCA to SLC 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.