Route reliability record
SLC→LGB
Salt Lake City to Long Beach
- Flights
- 1,552
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 588 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 45 minutes. That rests on 1,552 SLC to LGB flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 621 at 93.5% on time.
Best time to fly SLC to LGB: a 2pm–5pm departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.3% of the time and Saturday flights 91.4%, against 87.4% for the route overall.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 93.5% on time across 621 flights.
Key figures
On time
87.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,547 completed flights
Avg delay
46 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.26%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
93.5% on time across 621 flights
These figures cover 1,552 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 SLC to LGB
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 93.5% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 77.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 463 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 621 | 93.5% | 42 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 468 | 89.2% | 61 min | 0.64% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 463 | 77.3% | 40 min | 0.22% | B+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 16 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 16 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on SLC to LGB
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 Salt Lake City to Long Beach
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 | 93.5% | 93.5% | 0.00% | 2pm–5pm, Mon | OO 3793 15:05 |
| 2. SLC → LAXSalt Lake City to Los Angeles | SkyWest Airlines | 89.6% | 89.6% | 0.00% | 5pm–8pm, Wed | — |
| 3. SLC → BURSalt Lake City to Burbank | SkyWest Airlines | 89.0% | 89.5% | 0.52% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. SLC → LGBSalt Lake City to Long Beach | Delta Air Lines | 88.6% | 89.2% | 0.64% | 11am–2pm, Fri | — |
| 5. SLC → LAXSalt Lake City to Los Angeles | Frontier Airlines | 87.0% | 88.4% | 1.54% | 8am–11am, Tue | F9 1267 10:15 |
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 17 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am5 flights—
- 8am–11am68 flights75.0%
- 11am–2pm514 flights88.9%
- 2pm–5pm413 flights91.3%
- 5pm–8pm164 flights74.2%
- 8pm–5am388 flights88.9%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 91.3% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 74.2%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 514 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 97.6% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 138 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 91.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 82.9%. 9 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 8,869 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.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 41%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 8,869 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 8,869 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, 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 3,628 of the 8,869 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.26%, 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 2.6% 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.
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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 89.1% on time across 1,552 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 1,552 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 LGB 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 97.6% on time and April 78.2%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of April before you think about anything else. 1,547 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SLC to LGB questions
How often is SLC to LGB 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 12.6% of the 1,552 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 45 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SLC to LGB?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 93.5% on time across 621 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 77.3%, a gap of 16 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 LGB?
The 2pm–5pm departure window is the strongest at 91.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.2%, 17 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 April delays on SLC to LGB?
April is the weakest month at 78.2% on time, compared with 97.6% in September. Across the year that is 19 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
- LGB to SLC — the return legseparate record
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on SLC to LGB93.5%
- Delta Air Lines on SLC to LGB89.2%
- Southwest Airlines on SLC to LGB77.3%
- SLC to DEN, a related route77.8%
- LAS to LGB, a related route77.7%
- SLC to PHX, a related route83.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record93.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record89.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.3%
- 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 LGB and LGB 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.