Carrier performance at one airport

OO→SFO

SkyWest Airlines at San Francisco International

Departures: 32,078
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Routes: 25
Rank here: #6 of 9

SkyWest Airlines at San Francisco lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 32,078 flights, of which United Airlines flew 60,681 at 81.1% on time.

Measured against the airport rather than the country, SkyWest Airlines runs about a point behind the 77.3% weighted average across all carriers at SFO. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.

On time

76.3%

31,542 completed departures

Avg delay

74 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

1.26%

At SFO, this carrier only

Rank here

Of 9 carriers clearing the floor at SFO

These figures cover 32,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Against the competition

Every carrier at SFO, ranked

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 81.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 59.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 9,408 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance of all carriers departing SFO
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	60,681	81.1%	59 min	0.55%	B+
Delta Air Lines	13,817	78.7%	68 min	1.19%	B
JetBlue Airways	4,397	78.6%	75 min	1.61%	B
American Airlines	11,833	77.9%	106 min	1.88%	B
Alaska Airlines	10,554	76.3%	55 min	1.07%	B
SkyWest Airlines (this page)	32,078	76.3%	74 min	1.26%	B
Hawaiian Airlines	507	75.1%	67 min	1.97%	B
Frontier Airlines	3,407	65.2%	83 min	1.97%	C
Southwest Airlines	9,408	59.0%	59 min	0.82%	D+

The spread between United and Southwest is 22 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 22 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

Route by route

Where SkyWest Airlines flies from SFO

SkyWest Airlines operates 25 routes out of SFO with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.

SkyWest Airlines routes from SFO
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SFO to SNA · Santa Ana	3,521	79.4%	60 min	1.42%	B
SFO to LAX · Los Angeles	2,588	76.6%	60 min	1.04%	B
SFO to PSP · Palm Springs	2,163	75.3%	78 min	1.20%	B
SFO to SAN · San Diego	1,515	64.8%	57 min	2.05%	D
SFO to BOI · Boise	1,451	75.9%	73 min	0.28%	B+
SFO to SMF · Sacramento	1,323	79.3%	79 min	1.74%	B
SFO to ACV · Arcata/Eureka	1,285	76.4%	91 min	2.72%	B
SFO to FAT · Fresno	1,276	76.4%	96 min	1.49%	B
SFO to BUR · Burbank	1,175	78.9%	71 min	1.62%	B
SFO to SLC · Salt Lake City	1,103	77.2%	63 min	1.18%	B
SFO to SEA · Seattle	1,082	72.7%	50 min	1.11%	C
SFO to RNO · Reno	992	74.6%	75 min	1.71%	C
SFO to SBP · San Luis Obispo	963	75.6%	112 min	1.14%	B
SFO to TUS · Tucson	903	80.1%	60 min	0.33%	B+
SFO to RDD · Redding	887	73.8%	140 min	1.92%	C
SFO to GEG · Spokane	815	75.7%	65 min	0.37%	B+
SFO to MRY · Monterey	709	77.4%	90 min	0.42%	B+
SFO to RDM · Redmond	657	71.4%	60 min	1.37%	C
SFO to MFR · Medford	623	79.5%	80 min	1.77%	B
SFO to PSC · Pasco	606	79.9%	94 min	0.17%	B+
SFO to BFL · Bakersfield	580	70.1%	69 min	0.69%	C+
SFO to SBA · Santa Barbara	578	76.2%	83 min	2.60%	B
SFO to PHX · Phoenix	538	87.3%	67 min	0.74%	A+
SFO to ABQ · Albuquerque	515	83.4%	61 min	0.58%	B+
SFO to PDX · Portland	457	78.3%	56 min	0.22%	B+

Departure window

Best time of day for this operation

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 21 points, against 22 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am1,584 flights92.6%
8am–11am7,867 flights79.7%
11am–2pm5,817 flights72.0%
2pm–5pm6,382 flights73.9%
5pm–8pm5,013 flights78.0%
8pm–5am5,415 flights72.5%

Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 72.0% on time against 92.6% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 7,867 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Seasonal pattern

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.March best, June worst

June is the worst month at 62.4% on time, 23 points below March, the best at 85.7%. 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 2,957 flights.

Delay causes

What holds this operation up

National Airspace System
33%
Carrier
29%
Late-arriving aircraft
29%
Extreme weather
9%
Security
0%

33% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 182,000 minutes out of 551,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 551,155 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.26% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.

8.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

32,078 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 85.7% on time and June 62.4%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 31,542 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

SkyWest Airlines at SFO

How often is SkyWest Airlines at SFO delayed?

About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.7% of the 32,078 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on SkyWest Airlines at SFO?

United Airlines leads at 81.1% on time across 60,681 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 59.0%, a gap of 22 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 SkyWest Airlines at SFO?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.6% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 72.0%, 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 June delays on SkyWest Airlines at SFO?

June is the weakest month at 62.4% on time, compared with 85.7% in March. Across the year that is 23 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures