Carrier performance at one airport
WN→OAK
Southwest Airlines at Oakland International
- Departures
- 27,640
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #3 of 3
Southwest Airlines at Oakland lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That rests on 27,640 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,624 at 87.0% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Southwest Airlines runs about a point behind the 78.1% weighted average across all carriers at OAK. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
77.2%
27,446 completed departures
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
0.53%
At OAK, this carrier only
Rank here
#3
Of 3 carriers clearing the floor at OAK
These figures cover 28,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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.
Against the competition
Every carrier at OAK, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 87.0% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 77.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 27,640 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,624 | 87.0% | 54 min | 0.62% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,480 | 86.1% | 50 min | 1.62% | A |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 27,640 | 77.2% | 50 min | 0.53% | B+ |
SkyWest leads Southwest by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Route by route
Where Southwest Airlines flies from OAK
Southwest Airlines operates 25 routes out of OAK 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.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OAK to LAS · Las Vegas | 3,203 | 76.4% | 53 min | 0.59% | B+ |
| OAK to SAN · San Diego | 2,913 | 62.5% | 49 min | 0.93% | D+ |
| OAK to BUR · Burbank | 2,694 | 81.9% | 55 min | 0.93% | B+ |
| OAK to SNA · Santa Ana | 2,349 | 84.6% | 44 min | 0.85% | B+ |
| OAK to LAX · Los Angeles | 2,064 | 78.4% | 55 min | 0.53% | B+ |
| OAK to PHX · Phoenix | 1,906 | 77.5% | 55 min | 0.26% | B+ |
| OAK to DEN · Denver | 1,608 | 71.4% | 48 min | 0.37% | C+ |
| OAK to LGB · Long Beach | 1,568 | 85.7% | 48 min | 0.32% | A+ |
| OAK to ONT · Ontario | 1,458 | 80.2% | 49 min | 0.48% | B+ |
| OAK to PDX · Portland | 1,148 | 78.5% | 52 min | 0.44% | B+ |
| OAK to SEA · Seattle | 1,090 | 73.8% | 48 min | 0.28% | C+ |
| OAK to SLC · Salt Lake City | 547 | 75.5% | 57 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| OAK to BOI · Boise | 530 | 83.6% | 50 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| OAK to MDW · Chicago | 526 | 84.5% | 34 min | 0.19% | B+ |
| OAK to PSP · Palm Springs | 469 | 76.1% | 45 min | 0.85% | B+ |
| OAK to DAL · Dallas | 411 | 78.0% | 46 min | 0.97% | B+ |
| OAK to HOU · Houston | 376 | 76.0% | 41 min | 0.53% | B+ |
| OAK to HNL · Honolulu | 365 | 77.0% | 44 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| OAK to OGG · Kahului | 365 | 73.9% | 54 min | 0.27% | C+ |
| OAK to LIH · Lihuethin sample | 364 | 74.1% | 50 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| OAK to GEG · Spokanethin sample | 363 | 74.1% | 47 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| OAK to AUS · Austinthin sample | 356 | 78.1% | 40 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| OAK to ABQ · Albuquerquethin sample | 354 | 73.7% | 48 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| OAK to SBA · Santa Barbarathin sample | 297 | 82.7% | 49 min | 0.67% | B+ |
| OAK to EUG · Eugenethin sample | 186 | 82.3% | 33 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Southwest Airlines flight numbers from OAK
1 Southwest Airlines flight numbers leaving OAK flew their main route often enough to have a record of their own. Grouped by destination.
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 31 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am4,857 flights93.6%
- 8am–11am4,927 flights86.5%
- 11am–2pm5,440 flights76.8%
- 2pm–5pm4,694 flights68.3%
- 5pm–8pm4,723 flights69.4%
- 8pm–5am2,999 flights62.2%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.2% on time, against 93.6% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 5,440 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
June is the worst month at 66.8% on time, 21 points below January, the best at 88.0%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 2,498 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 312,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 51 to one. The split is drawn from 312,425 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.53%, 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.
5.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
27,640 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. January runs 88.0% on time and June 66.8%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 27,446 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Southwest Airlines at OAK
How often is Southwest Airlines at OAK delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.8% of the 27,640 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Southwest Airlines at OAK?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 87.0% on time across 1,624 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 77.2%, a gap of 10 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 Southwest Airlines at OAK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 62.2%, 31 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 Southwest Airlines at OAK?
June is the weakest month at 66.8% on time, compared with 88.0% in January. Across the year that is 21 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
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.