Route reliability record
DEN→SBA
Denver to Santa Barbara
- Flights
- 1,058
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 916 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route 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 about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,058 DEN to SBA flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly DEN to SBA: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.2%, against 72.4% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 49 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,050 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.38%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
75.6% on time across 771 flights
These figures cover 1,058 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to SBA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 771 | 75.6% | 59 min | 0.26% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 287 | 63.7% | 58 min | 0.70% | D+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to SBA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am16 flights—
- 11am–2pm419 flights82.3%
- 2pm–5pm114 flights78.9%
- 5pm–8pm348 flights66.6%
- 8pm–5am161 flights54.1%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.1% on time, against 82.3% for the 11am–2pm slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 419 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to SBA 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 DEN to SBA, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 82.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 54.1%, a wide gap of 28.2 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm82.3%
- 2–5pm78.9%
- 5–8pm66.6%
- 8pm–5am54.1%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 35 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.
July is the worst month at 53.5% on time, 35 points below February, the best at 88.0%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 105 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 68.1%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 57% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
57% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 57 to one. The split is drawn from 16,976 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.38%, below the national 1.89% 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.8% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 916 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.5% on time across 1,058 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,058 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 SBA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,058 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 72.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,050 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to SBA questions
How often is DEN to SBA delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.6% of the 1,058 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is DEN to SBA compared with the rest of the country?
72.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points against it. That is worth a C+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DEN to SBA?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 82.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 54.1%, 28 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 DEN to SBA?
July is the weakest month at 53.5% on time, compared with 88.0% in February. Across the year that is 35 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
- SBA to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- United Airlines on DEN to SBA75.6%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to SBA63.7%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- SFO to SBA, a related route78.2%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- United Airlines on-time record75.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record63.7%
- 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. DEN to SBA and SBA to DEN 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.