Carrier route record

DLSLC→LGB

Delta Air Lines · Salt Lake City to Long Beach

Flights: 530
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 34%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on SLC to LGB 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 530 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 559 at 92.7% on time.

Set against the rest of the country, Delta's SLC to LGB record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 109 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

88.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 525 completed flights

Avg delay

57 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.94%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

86.2%

Every carrier on SLC to LGB, 1,569 flights

These figures cover 530 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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

Delta against every carrier on SLC to LGB

Delta flew 530 of the 1,569 flights on SLC to LGB, about 34% of it. Its 88.2% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 86.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 92.7% to Southwest at 76.6%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on SLC to LGB
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	559	92.7%	51 min	0.00%	A+
Delta Air Lines (this page)	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

Delta flight numbers on SLC to LGB

DL 111611:0589.2% · 255 flights

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Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 530 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am—
11am–2pm365 flights90.6%
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am165 flights82.9%

Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 90.6% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 82.9%. 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 365 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on SLC to LGB through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, August worst

August is the worst month at 80.6% on time, 19 points below September, the best at 100.0%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.

Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 96.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 81.1%, a spread of 15 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late Delta on SLC to LGB runs when it is late

Delta on SLC to LGB often beats the schedule: 164 of 525 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 62 late arrivals split 26 under half an hour, 18 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 18 an hour or more.

15+ min early164 flights31.2%
Within 15 min299 flights57.0%
15–29 min late26 flights5.0%
30–59 min late18 flights3.4%
1–2 hours late11 flights2.1%
2+ hours late7 flights1.3%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 525 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

15 of 65 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 23% of them. 12 flights left on time and still arrived late.

The worst days

Worst days for Delta on SLC to LGB

The latest arrival of the period was on 22 March 2026, 4 hours 10 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across March, April, July and August, with no single month standing out.

The latest arrivals of Delta on SLC to LGB in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
22 March 2026	4 hours 10 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
1 April 2026	3 hours 58 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
29 July 2026	3 hours 44 minutes	Extreme weather
16 March 2026	2 hours 55 minutes	Extreme weather
13 August 2026	2 hours 54 minutes	Carrier

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

Carrier accounts for 51% of the 3,546 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Carrier
51%
Late-arriving aircraft
27%
Extreme weather
12%
National Airspace System
10%

Extreme weather accounts for 12% 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 2.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 3,546 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,814 of the 3,546 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 0.94% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.4% 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 88.3% on time across 529 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 530 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 Delta on SLC to LGB

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 530 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 88.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 525 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures