Route reliability record
SLC→LAX
Salt Lake City to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 4,196
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 590 mi
- Carriers
- 6
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 8 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 55 minutes. That rests on 4,196 SLC to LAX flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 720 at 91.1% on time.
Best time to fly SLC to LAX: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.7%, against 85.6% for the route overall.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 91.1% on time across 720 flights.
Key figures
On time
85.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,176 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.48%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
91.1% on time across 720 flights
These figures cover 4,196 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SLC to LAX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 91.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 80.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 371 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 148 | 91.9% | 34 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 720 | 91.1% | 77 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 90.9% | 29 min | 4.35% | A− |
| Frontier Airlines | 475 | 90.0% | 73 min | 1.05% | A |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,459 | 83.5% | 52 min | 0.53% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 371 | 80.3% | 44 min | 0.27% | B+ |
SkyWest leads Southwest by 11 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on SLC 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Salt Lake City 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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SLC → LGBSalt Lake City to Long Beach | SkyWest Airlines | 92.7% | 92.7% | 0.00% | 2pm–5pm, Mon | OO 3793 15:05 |
| 2. SLC → LAXSalt Lake City to Los Angeles | SkyWest Airlines | 91.1% | 91.1% | 0.00% | 5pm–8pm, Wed | — |
| 3. SLC → BURSalt Lake City to Burbank | SkyWest Airlines | 90.4% | 90.9% | 0.53% | 5am–8am, Tue | OO 3693 15:00 |
| 4. SLC → LAXSalt Lake City to Los Angeles | Frontier Airlines | 89.1% | 90.0% | 1.05% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 5. SLC → LGBSalt Lake City to Long Beach | Delta Air Lines | 87.4% | 88.2% | 0.94% | 11am–2pm, Fri | DL 1116 11:05 |
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 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am509 flights91.1%
- 8am–11am861 flights91.4%
- 11am–2pm706 flights85.9%
- 2pm–5pm729 flights83.4%
- 5pm–8pm641 flights82.8%
- 8pm–5am750 flights79.4%
Scale runs 70% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.4% of the time, against 79.4% 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 861 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SLC to LAX 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 LAX, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 79.4%, a wide gap of 12.0 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am91.1%
- 8–11am91.4%
- 11am–2pm85.9%
- 2–5pm83.4%
- 5–8pm82.8%
- 8pm–5am79.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 14 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 76.5% on time, 14 points below November, the best at 90.0%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 422 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 81.8%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 49% of the 33,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Carrier
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 33,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 32,941 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 16,000 of the 33,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.48%, 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 3.6% 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 590 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 87.2% on time across 4,195 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 4,196 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 LAX 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. November runs 90.0% on time and August 76.5%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 4,176 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SLC to LAX questions
How often is SLC to LAX 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 14.4% of the 4,196 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SLC to LAX?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 91.1% on time across 720 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 80.3%, a gap of 11 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 LAX?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 79.4%, 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 August delays on SLC to LAX?
August is the weakest month at 76.5% on time, compared with 90.0% in November. Across the year that is 14 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 SLC — the return legseparate record
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- United Airlines on SLC to LAX91.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on SLC to LAX91.1%
- Frontier Airlines on SLC to LAX90.0%
- Delta Air Lines on SLC to LAX83.5%
- Southwest Airlines on SLC to LAX80.3%
- SLC to DEN, a related route79.0%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- SLC to PHX, a related route83.5%
- United Airlines on-time record91.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record91.1%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record90.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. SLC to LAX and LAX 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.