Route reliability record
BUR→STS
Burbank to Santa Rosa
- Flights
- 741
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 387 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 741 BUR to STS flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly BUR to STS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.1% of the time and Saturday flights 91.0%, against 84.1% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 68 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 718 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.02%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
88.2% on time across 613 flights
These figures cover 741 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BUR to STS
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 613 | 88.2% | 63 min | 2.45% | A |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 128 | 65.4% | 47 min | 0.00% | C+ |
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Burbank to Santa Rosa
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LAX → STSLos Angeles to Santa Rosa | SkyWest Airlines | 87.1% | 89.3% | 2.47% | 5pm–8pm, Wed (route) | — |
| 2. BUR → STSBurbank to Santa Rosa | SkyWest Airlines | 86.0% | 88.2% | 2.45% | 2pm–5pm, Sat | — |
| 3. SNA → STSSanta Ana to Santa Rosa | SkyWest Airlines | 80.1% | 80.5% | 0.54% | 5pm–8pm, Wed | OO 3467 11:48 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 14 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am69 flights94.1%
- 8am–11am258 flights85.0%
- 11am–2pm97 flights80.0%
- 2pm–5pm188 flights79.8%
- 5pm–8pm93 flights85.9%
- 8pm–5am36 flights—
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.1% of the time, against 79.8% for the afternoon window. That is 14 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 258 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BUR to STS 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 BUR to STS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.1% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 79.8%, a wide gap of 14.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.1%
- 8–11am85.0%
- 11am–2pm80.0%
- 2–5pm79.8%
- 5–8pm85.9%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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.
December is the weak month at 71.7% on time, against 96.1% in March. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. August was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 91.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.9%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 6,452 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,452 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 6,452 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 94.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.02% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% 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.
At 387 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 82.2% on time across 741 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 741 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in STS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 741 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 84.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 718 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BUR to STS questions
How often is BUR to STS delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.9% of the 741 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is BUR to STS compared with the rest of the country?
84.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BUR to STS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.1% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 79.8%, 14 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 December delays on BUR to STS?
December is the weakest month at 71.7% on time, compared with 96.1% in March. Across the year that is 24 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
- STS to BUR — the return legseparate record
- Hollywood Burbank (BUR) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on BUR to STS88.2%
- Southwest Airlines on BUR to STS65.4%
- BUR to LAS, a related route80.4%
- SAN to STS, a related route77.5%
- BUR to PHX, a related route83.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record88.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record65.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. BUR to STS and STS to BUR are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.