Carrier performance at one airport
WN→SNA
Southwest Airlines at John Wayne Airport
- Departures
- 14,640
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Routes
- 9
- Rank here
- #3 of 9
Southwest Airlines at Santa Ana lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 14,640 flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 4,377 at 89.6% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Southwest Airlines runs 2 points ahead of the 81.5% weighted average across all carriers at SNA. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
83.0%
14,530 completed departures
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
0.66%
At SNA, this carrier only
Rank here
#3
Of 9 carriers clearing the floor at SNA
These figures cover 15,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 SNA, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Alaska Airlines arrives on time 89.6% of the time; Allegiant Air manages 71.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,212 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 4,377 | 89.6% | 48 min | 1.33% | A |
| Spirit Airlines | 836 | 87.2% | 80 min | 1.56% | A |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 14,640 | 83.0% | 50 min | 0.66% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 4,608 | 82.2% | 90 min | 1.00% | B |
| United Airlines | 6,107 | 80.9% | 76 min | 0.69% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 6,700 | 79.3% | 90 min | 2.13% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,064 | 78.3% | 90 min | 1.13% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 5,697 | 75.7% | 69 min | 1.30% | B |
| Allegiant Air | 1,212 | 71.8% | 137 min | 0.91% | C+ |
The spread between Alaska and Allegiant is 18 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 18 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Route by route
Where Southwest Airlines flies from SNA
Southwest Airlines operates 9 routes out of SNA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SNA to SJC · San Jose | 2,661 | 86.4% | 45 min | 0.83% | A+ |
| SNA to LAS · Las Vegas | 2,498 | 81.0% | 53 min | 0.44% | B+ |
| SNA to PHX · Phoenix | 2,426 | 83.2% | 47 min | 0.66% | B+ |
| SNA to OAK · Oakland | 2,320 | 84.7% | 49 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| SNA to SMF · Sacramento | 2,304 | 85.8% | 51 min | 0.82% | A+ |
| SNA to DEN · Denver | 1,535 | 77.5% | 57 min | 0.46% | B+ |
| SNA to DAL · Dallasthin sample | 364 | 76.3% | 39 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| SNA to AUS · Austinthin sample | 352 | 79.8% | 52 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| SNA to BNA · Nashvillethin sample | 180 | 67.0% | 41 min | 0.00% | C+ |
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 20 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am2,099 flights95.6%
- 8am–11am2,920 flights91.6%
- 11am–2pm2,746 flights82.1%
- 2pm–5pm2,802 flights75.9%
- 5pm–8pm2,804 flights75.2%
- 8pm–5am1,269 flights76.9%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.6% of the time, against 75.2% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 2,920 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
June is the worst month at 76.7% on time, 13 points below January, the best at 89.4%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 1,289 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
57% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 123,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 122,803 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.66%, below the national 1.81% 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.
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.3% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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.
14,640 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 89.4% on time and June 76.7%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 14,530 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Southwest Airlines at SNA
How often is Southwest Airlines at SNA delayed?
About one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.0% of the 14,640 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Southwest Airlines at SNA?
Alaska Airlines leads at 89.6% on time across 4,377 flights. Allegiant Air is at the other end on 71.8%, a gap of 18 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 SNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 75.2%, 20 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 SNA?
June is the weakest month at 76.7% on time, compared with 89.4% in January. Across the year that is 13 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
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) all carriers
- SNA to SJC route record86.4%
- SNA to LAS route record81.0%
- SNA to PHX route record83.2%
- SNA to OAK route record84.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.