Route reliability record
SLC→LGB
Salt Lake City to Long Beach
- Flights
- 1,569
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 588 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 50 minutes. That rests on 1,569 SLC to LGB flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 559 at 92.7% on time.
Best time to fly SLC to LGB: a 2pm–5pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 89.6%, against 86.2% for the route overall.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 92.7% on time across 559 flights.
Key figures
On time
86.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,563 completed flights
Avg delay
48 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.38%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
92.7% on time across 559 flights
These figures cover 1,569 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 LGB
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 92.7% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 76.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 480 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 559 | 92.7% | 51 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 530 | 88.2% | 57 min | 0.94% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 480 | 76.6% | 42 min | 0.21% | 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.
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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 | 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 21 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am9 flights—
- 8am–11am91 flights81.3%
- 11am–2pm494 flights89.4%
- 2pm–5pm403 flights91.1%
- 5pm–8pm172 flights70.2%
- 8pm–5am400 flights85.2%
Scale runs 60% 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 91.1% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 70.2%. 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 494 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SLC to LGB 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 LGB, the best departure window is 2pm–5pm at 91.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 70.2%, a wide gap of 20.9 points. All US flights leaving 2pm–5pm ran 71.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am81.3%
- 11am–2pm89.4%
- 2–5pm91.1%
- 5–8pm70.2%
- 8pm–5am85.2%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 80.7%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 10,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 10%Extreme weather
- 9%National Airspace System
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 10,265 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,027 of the 10,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.38%, 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 3.0% 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 88.7% on time across 1,569 flights, within 3 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 1,569 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. 1,563 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 seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.8% of the 1,569 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SLC to LGB?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 92.7% on time across 559 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 76.6%, 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 91.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 70.2%, 21 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 LGB92.7%
- Delta Air Lines on SLC to LGB88.2%
- Southwest Airlines on SLC to LGB76.6%
- SLC to DEN, a related route79.0%
- LAS to LGB, a related route76.2%
- SLC to PHX, a related route83.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record92.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record88.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.6%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.