Santa Ana, CA · departure reliability
SNA
John Wayne Airport
- Departures
- 45,211
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Carriers
- 9
- US rank
- #41 by volume
Santa Ana
John Wayne Airport lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 45,211 flights, of which Spirit Airlines flew 609 at 89.9% on time.
Spirit Airlines is the most reliable of the nine carriers covered here at 89.9% on time across 609 flights.
Key figures
On time
81.2%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.05%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Spirit
89.9% on time here
These figures cover 45,000 flights between September 2025 and August 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. Spirit Airlines arrives on time 89.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 72.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 5,797 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 14,635 | 83.1% | 50 min | 0.60% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 6,710 | 80.6% | 92 min | 1.83% | B |
| United Airlines | 6,156 | 80.4% | 78 min | 0.70% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 5,797 | 72.8% | 68 min | 1.41% | C |
| Delta Air Lines | 4,530 | 82.1% | 88 min | 1.10% | B |
| Alaska Airlines | 4,387 | 89.6% | 47 min | 1.09% | A |
| Allegiant Air | 1,285 | 72.9% | 131 min | 0.93% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,102 | 77.2% | 92 min | 1.54% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 609 | 89.9% | 80 min | 1.97% | A |
The spread between Spirit and SkyWest is 17 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 17 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 21 busiest departures from SNA, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 81.2%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SNA to SFO · San Francisco | 4,771 | 65.5% | 66 min | 1.70% | C |
| SNA to PHX · Phoenix | 4,636 | 82.3% | 68 min | 0.75% | B+ |
| SNA to LAS · Las Vegas | 4,080 | 82.7% | 66 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| SNA to SEA · Seattle | 3,944 | 85.8% | 57 min | 1.06% | A |
| SNA to DEN · Denver | 3,714 | 83.4% | 66 min | 0.30% | B+ |
| SNA to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 2,957 | 81.3% | 93 min | 2.71% | B |
| SNA to SJC · San Jose | 2,677 | 86.1% | 46 min | 0.75% | A+ |
| SNA to OAK · Oakland | 2,355 | 84.3% | 47 min | 0.64% | B+ |
| SNA to SMF · Sacramento | 2,289 | 86.2% | 50 min | 0.96% | A+ |
| SNA to ORD · Chicago | 2,164 | 76.8% | 76 min | 1.06% | B |
| SNA to SLC · Salt Lake City | 1,859 | 86.3% | 97 min | 0.70% | A+ |
| SNA to PDX · Portland | 1,543 | 93.2% | 42 min | 1.04% | A |
| SNA to IAH · Houston | 1,092 | 88.4% | 66 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SNA to EWR · Newark | 1,091 | 79.3% | 134 min | 2.11% | B |
| SNA to ATL · Atlanta | 1,020 | 79.9% | 98 min | 0.98% | B+ |
| SNA to STS · Santa Rosa | 745 | 80.5% | 63 min | 0.54% | B+ |
| SNA to MSP · Minneapolis | 574 | 82.0% | 77 min | 1.92% | B |
| SNA to JFK · New York | 493 | 75.2% | 114 min | 2.84% | B |
| SNA to PVU · Provo | 412 | 72.7% | 159 min | 0.24% | C+ |
| SNA to BOI · Boise | 388 | 85.6% | 62 min | 1.03% | A |
| SNA to DAL · Dallas | 368 | 78.8% | 38 min | 0.54% | B+ |
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 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am6,995 flights91.2%
- 8am–11am8,683 flights87.1%
- 11am–2pm10,595 flights79.4%
- 2pm–5pm8,172 flights75.5%
- 5pm–8pm7,834 flights75.5%
- 8pm–5am2,932 flights78.1%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.2% of the time, against 75.5% for the evening 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. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 10,595 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SNA departures by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On departures from Santa Ana (SNA), the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.2% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 75.5%, a wide gap of 15.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.2%
- 8–11am87.1%
- 11am–2pm79.4%
- 2–5pm75.5%
- 5–8pm75.5%
- 8pm–5am78.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When SNA runs late
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 45,211 flights. The strip shows how much of SNA's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
June is the worst month at 75.1% 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. July was the busiest month here, with 3,992 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.4%, a spread of 10 points.
SNA month by month
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 599,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 599,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 598,963 reported delay minutes.
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 91.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.05% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.46%.
6.3% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
45,211 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: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 75.5% on time against 91.2% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 16 points is the largest single thing you control here. Spirit Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 44,530 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SNA delay questions
How often is Santa Ana (SNA) delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.8% of the 45,211 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Santa Ana (SNA)?
Spirit Airlines leads at 89.9% on time across 609 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 72.8%, a gap of 17 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 91.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 75.5%, 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 June delays on Santa Ana (SNA)?
June is the weakest month at 75.1% 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.
Related
Where to go next
- SNA to SFO — San Francisco65.5%
- SNA to PHX — Phoenix82.3%
- SNA to LAS — Las Vegas82.7%
- SNA to SEA — Seattle85.8%
- SNA to DEN — Denver83.4%
- SNA to DFW — Dallas-Fort Worth81.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record83.1%
- American Airlines on-time record80.6%
- United Airlines on-time record80.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record72.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Air traffic control delays, airport by airport
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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.