Carrier route record
OOBUR→SFO
SkyWest Airlines · Burbank to San Francisco
- Flights
- 928
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 30%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on BUR to SFO sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 928 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,662 at 57.8% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so SkyWest on BUR to SFO runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 46 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 904 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.16%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
59.3%
Every carrier on BUR to SFO, 3,104 flights
These figures cover 928 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
SkyWest against every carrier on BUR to SFO
SkyWest flew 928 of the 3,104 flights on BUR to SFO, about 30% of it. Its 72.7% on time is 13 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 59.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 72.7% to Southwest at 40.4%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 57.8% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 40.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 514 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 928 | 72.7% | 88 min | 2.16% | C |
| United Airlines | 1,662 | 57.8% | 68 min | 0.60% | D+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 514 | 40.4% | 56 min | 1.56% | F |
The spread between United and Southwest 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 19 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am103 flights79.4%
- 8am–11am259 flights62.5%
- 11am–2pm192 flights77.6%
- 2pm–5pm206 flights81.9%
- 5pm–8pm115 flights67.3%
- 8pm–5am53 flights66.0%
Scale runs 55% to 85%.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 81.9% on time, ahead of 8am–11am at 62.5%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 259 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on BUR to SFO through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025122 flights77.9%
- Oct–Dec 2025453 flights69.4%
- Jan–Mar 2026308 flights80.9%
- Apr–Jun 202639 flights30.8%
- Jul–Sep 20266 flights—
Scale runs 20% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 72.7% on time across 928 flights.
SkyWest on BUR to SFO did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 80.9% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 30.8%, a swing of 50 points on roughly 232 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.7% on time and Thursday the weakest at 62.5%, a spread of 24 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on BUR to SFO runs when it is late
SkyWest on BUR to SFO often beats the schedule: 426 of 904 completed flights, 47%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 247 late arrivals split 74 under half an hour, 67 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 106 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early426 flights47.1%
- Within 15 min231 flights25.6%
- 15–29 min late74 flights8.2%
- 30–59 min late67 flights7.4%
- 1–2 hours late61 flights6.7%
- 2+ hours late45 flights5.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 904 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 219 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 22 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 50 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at SFO.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on BUR to SFO
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 October 2025, 16 hours 34 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 October 2025 | 16 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 January 2026 | 11 hours 58 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 November 2025 | 11 hours | Carrier |
| 14 December 2025 | 9 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 December 2025 | 8 hours 52 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
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 22,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%National Airspace System
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 11%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 7,814 minutes out of 22,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 21,687 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.16% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.43%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
11.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 326 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 2pm–5pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.2% on time across 924 flights, 7 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 928 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking SkyWest on BUR to SFO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 928 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 72.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 904 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BUR to SFO, every carrier
- SkyWest on SFO to BUR, the return leg
- United Airlines on BUR to SFO57.8%
- Southwest Airlines on BUR to SFO40.4%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Hollywood Burbank (BUR) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.