Santa Ana, CA · departure reliability

SNA

John Wayne Airport

Departures: 45,364
Period: June 2025 to May 2026
Carriers: 9
US rank: #41 by volume

Terminal building and aircraft stands at a US airport

Santa Ana

John Wayne Airport lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. Roughly one flight in five 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 45,364 flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 4,393 at 88.9% on time.

Alaska Airlines is the most reliable of the nine carriers covered here at 88.9% on time across 4,393 flights.

On time

81.7%

Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination

Avg delay

72 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

1.10%

National rate is 1.80%

Best carrier

Alaska

88.9% on time here

These figures cover 45,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 SNA

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Alaska Airlines arrives on time 88.9% of the time; Allegiant Air manages 72.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,176 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier departing SNA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Southwest Airlines	14,665	83.2%	50 min	0.68%	B+
American Airlines	6,700	78.8%	91 min	2.06%	B
United Airlines	6,105	80.8%	74 min	0.66%	B+
SkyWest Airlines	5,672	77.8%	72 min	1.29%	B
Delta Air Lines	4,613	82.1%	88 min	0.98%	B+
Alaska Airlines	4,393	88.9%	48 min	1.39%	A
Allegiant Air	1,176	72.7%	133 min	0.94%	C+
Frontier Airlines	1,054	78.0%	86 min	1.61%	B
Spirit Airlines	986	88.1%	77 min	1.32%	A

The spread between Alaska and Allegiant is 16 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 16 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

Route by route

Busiest routes out of SNA

Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 19 busiest departures from SNA, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 81.7%.

Busiest routes from SNA by flight volume
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SNA to SFO · San Francisco	4,780	73.6%	69 min	1.49%	C
SNA to PHX · Phoenix	4,577	82.4%	67 min	0.74%	B+
SNA to LAS · Las Vegas	4,386	83.3%	67 min	0.71%	B+
SNA to SEA · Seattle	3,970	84.7%	57 min	1.31%	B
SNA to DEN · Denver	3,708	81.5%	63 min	0.43%	B+
SNA to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	2,904	79.1%	95 min	3.27%	B−
SNA to SJC · San Jose	2,653	86.9%	44 min	0.79%	A+
SNA to OAK · Oakland	2,385	84.8%	47 min	0.92%	B+
SNA to SMF · Sacramento	2,319	85.5%	51 min	0.86%	A+
SNA to ORD · Chicago	2,237	76.6%	75 min	1.16%	B
SNA to SLC · Salt Lake City	1,855	86.8%	90 min	0.65%	A+
SNA to PDX · Portland	1,543	93.0%	45 min	1.30%	A
SNA to IAH · Houston	1,094	87.8%	77 min	0.18%	A+
SNA to EWR · Newark	1,092	78.5%	114 min	1.56%	B
SNA to ATL · Atlanta	1,063	80.4%	114 min	0.94%	B+
SNA to STS · Santa Rosa	746	78.2%	70 min	0.67%	B+
SNA to MSP · Minneapolis	585	81.2%	76 min	1.71%	B
SNA to PVU · Provo	409	70.6%	138 min	0.24%	C+
SNA to JFK · New York	401	72.9%	102 min	2.24%	C

Departure window

The best time of day to leave SNA

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 16 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am6,884 flights91.4%
8am–11am8,768 flights87.5%
11am–2pm10,787 flights79.0%
2pm–5pm8,180 flights75.9%
5pm–8pm7,886 flights76.8%
8pm–5am2,859 flights81.0%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.4% of the time, against 75.9% for the afternoon window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.

Across the year

When SNA runs late

Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 45,364 flights. The strip shows how much of SNA's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.

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

July is the worst month at 75.7% on time, 11 points below January, the best at 86.5%. 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.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.9%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why SNA gets delayed

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 586,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
40%
Carrier
30%
National Airspace System
26%
Extreme weather
4%
Security
0%

40% 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 586,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.4% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.34%.

6.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. 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.

45,364 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 SNA

Put together: take the 5am–8am departure, avoid July if the dates are flexible, and if two carriers are within a few dollars of each other, Alaska is the one with the record behind it. None of that guarantees an on-time arrival; it moves the odds by 16 points, which is the most any booking decision can do.

Common questions

SNA delay questions

How often is Santa Ana (SNA) delayed?

Roughly 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 18.3% of the 45,364 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on Santa Ana (SNA)?

Alaska Airlines leads at 88.9% on time across 4,393 flights. Allegiant Air is at the other end on 72.7%, a gap of 16 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 Santa Ana (SNA)?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.4% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 75.9%, 16 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 July delays on Santa Ana (SNA)?

July is the weakest month at 75.7% on time, compared with 86.5% in January. Across the year that is 11 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, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures