Oakland, CA · departure reliability

OAK

Oakland International

Departures: 31,767
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Carriers: 4
US rank: #50 by volume

Terminal building and aircraft stands at a US airport

Oakland

Oakland International lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 31,767 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,462 at 89.3% on time.

SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 89.3% on time across 1,462 flights.

On time

79.5%

Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination

Avg delay

52 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

0.64%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

SkyWest

89.3% on time here

These figures cover 32,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.

Carrier by carrier

Which airlines run best out of OAK

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 89.3% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 78.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 28,173 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier departing OAK
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Southwest Airlines	28,173	78.5%	50 min	0.59%	B+
SkyWest Airlines	1,462	89.3%	62 min	0.48%	A+
Alaska Airlines	1,222	85.7%	50 min	1.39%	A
Hawaiian Airlines	498	88.2%	171 min	2.41%	A

SkyWest leads Southwest by 11 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

Route by route

Busiest routes out of OAK

Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 21 busiest departures from OAK, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 79.5%.

Busiest routes from OAK by flight volume
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
OAK to LAS · Las Vegas	3,337	78.1%	54 min	0.69%	B+
OAK to SAN · San Diego	3,201	66.9%	50 min	0.97%	C+
OAK to BUR · Burbank	2,771	81.9%	53 min	1.15%	B
OAK to SNA · Santa Ana	2,358	85.4%	45 min	0.72%	A+
OAK to LAX · Los Angeles	2,100	79.7%	54 min	1.00%	B
OAK to PHX · Phoenix	1,932	77.4%	54 min	0.26%	B+
OAK to SEA · Seattle	1,901	77.3%	49 min	0.89%	B+
OAK to SLC · Salt Lake City	1,670	89.1%	65 min	0.12%	A+
OAK to LGB · Long Beach	1,623	86.3%	49 min	0.25%	A+
OAK to DEN · Denver	1,607	73.0%	47 min	0.44%	C+
OAK to ONT · Ontario	1,489	82.5%	49 min	0.40%	B+
OAK to PDX · Portland	1,297	79.6%	53 min	0.39%	B+
OAK to HNL · Honolulu	729	80.4%	72 min	0.82%	B+
OAK to OGG · Kahului	710	86.2%	80 min	0.99%	A+
OAK to LIH · Lihue	659	82.7%	59 min	0.61%	B+
OAK to BOI · Boise	578	83.2%	53 min	0.00%	B+
OAK to MDW · Chicago	482	85.5%	33 min	0.21%	A+
OAK to PSP · Palm Springs	480	77.3%	45 min	0.83%	B+
OAK to DAL · Dallas	444	76.7%	52 min	0.90%	B+
OAK to GEG · Spokane	407	73.7%	46 min	0.00%	C+
OAK to HOU · Houston	376	80.0%	37 min	0.53%	B+

Departure window

The best time of day to leave OAK

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 29 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am6,311 flights93.7%
8am–11am5,722 flights87.2%
11am–2pm6,228 flights78.8%
2pm–5pm4,943 flights71.2%
5pm–8pm5,382 flights71.6%
8pm–5am3,181 flights65.0%

Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.7% of the time, against 65.0% for the overnight window. That is 29 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 6,311 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When OAK runs late

OAK's year swings by 19 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.

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

June is the worst month at 69.7% on time, 19 points below January, the best at 88.4%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 3,046 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.2%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why OAK gets delayed

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 337,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Late-arriving aircraft
47%
Carrier
37%
National Airspace System
15%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
0%

47% 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 337,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 34 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 337,078 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 123,000 of the 337,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.64%, 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.

5.2% 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 roughly 50 minutes kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

31,767 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.

What to do with this

Flying out of OAK

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 88.4% on time and June 69.7%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 31,514 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

OAK delay questions

How often is Oakland (OAK) delayed?

About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.5% of the 31,767 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.

Which airline is most reliable on Oakland (OAK)?

SkyWest Airlines leads at 89.3% on time across 1,462 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 78.5%, a gap of 11 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 Oakland (OAK)?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.0%, 29 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 Oakland (OAK)?

June is the weakest month at 69.7% on time, compared with 88.4% in January. Across the year that is 19 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