Route reliability record

SLC→SJC

Salt Lake City to San Jose

Flights: 1,796
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Distance: 584 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 about an hour. That rests on 1,796 SLC to SJC flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 664 at 92.0% on time.

Best time to fly SLC to SJC: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 93.1%, against 86.7% for the route overall.

Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 94 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

86.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,789 completed flights

Avg delay

65 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.39%

National rate is 1.89%

Best carrier

SkyWest

92.0% on time across 664 flights

These figures cover 1,796 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 SJC

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 92.0% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 85.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 924 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on SLC to SJC
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	664	92.0%	75 min	0.15%	A+
Delta Air Lines	924	85.7%	70 min	0.43%	A+
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	208	74.3%	44 min	0.96%	C+

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 SJC

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.

Delta 127222:5082.8% · 365 flights

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Best ways to make this trip

The most reliable ways to fly Salt Lake City to San Jose

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.

Most reliable ways to fly from SLC to SJC
Option	Airline	Success	On time	Cancelled	Best departure	Most punctual flight
1. SLC → SJCSalt Lake City to San Jose	SkyWest Airlines	91.9%	92.0%	0.15%	8am–11am, Tue	—
2. SLC → OAKSalt Lake City to Oakland	SkyWest Airlines	91.6%	91.8%	0.19%	11am–2pm, Tue	OO 3797 22:50
3. SLC → OAKSalt Lake City to Oakland	Southwest Airlines	86.8%	87.0%	0.18%	5am–8am, Tue	—
4. SLC → SJCSalt Lake City to San Jose	Delta Air Lines	85.3%	85.7%	0.43%	11am–2pm, Tue	DL 1272 22:50
5. SLC → SFOSalt Lake City to San Francisco	United Airlines	68.1%	68.2%	0.20%	11am–2pm, Sat	—

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.

Plan this trip by month, day and time

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 18 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am117 flights93.2%
8am–11am235 flights96.6%
11am–2pm462 flights85.2%
2pm–5pm424 flights87.7%
5pm–8pm207 flights78.7%
8pm–5am351 flights83.3%

Scale runs 70% to 100%.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 96.6% of the time, against 78.7% for the evening window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 462 flights scheduled in it.

Explore

Filter SLC to SJC 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 SJC, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 96.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 78.7%, a wide gap of 17.9 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.

5–8am93.2%
8–11am96.6%
11am–2pm85.2%
2–5pm87.7%
5–8pm78.7%
8pm–5am83.3%

best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 1,796 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.

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

August is the worst month at 83.0% on time, 7 points below September, the best at 89.8%. 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 169 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 93.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 81.9%, a spread of 11 points.

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

Carrier accounts for 62% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Carrier
62%
Late-arriving aircraft
26%
National Airspace System
6%
Extreme weather
6%
Security
0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 62%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,679 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 15,553 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.39%, 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 4.0% 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 584 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 91.9% on time across 1,794 flights, 5 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 5 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 1,796 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 SJC after this flight

What to do with this

Booking this route

Put together: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 78.7% on time against 96.6% for the 8am–11am slot, and that 18 points is the largest single thing you control here. SkyWest Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 1,789 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

SLC to SJC questions

How often is SLC to SJC 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 13.3% of the 1,796 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 SJC?

SkyWest Airlines leads at 92.0% on time across 664 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 85.7%, 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 SJC?

The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 96.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 78.7%, 18 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 SJC?

August is the weakest month at 83.0% on time, compared with 89.8% in September. Across the year that is 7 points between the best and worst months. The seasonal swing is modest enough that it should not decide when you travel.

Where to go next

Direction matters. SLC to SJC and SJC 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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<iframe src="https://delayatlas.com/embed/route/slc-sjc" width="320" height="132" style="border:0;max-width:100%" loading="lazy" title="SLC to SJC on-time record"></iframe>
<p style="font:12px/1.4 sans-serif;margin:4px 0 0">SLC to SJC flight delay statistics from <a href="https://delayatlas.com/routes/slc-to-sjc">DelayAtlas</a></p>

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.