Carrier route record
WNDEN→SBA
Southwest Airlines · Denver to Santa Barbara
- Flights
- 270
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 25%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on DEN to SBA sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 270 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on DEN to SBA runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 78 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 268 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.4%
Every carrier on DEN to SBA, 1,097 flights
These figures cover 270 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on DEN to SBA
Southwest flew 270 of the 1,097 flights on DEN to SBA, about 25% of it. Its 69.8% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 76.0% to Southwest at 69.8%.
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 | 827 | 76.0% | 56 min | 0.73% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample | 270 | 69.8% | 54 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 27 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am38 flights78.4%
- 11am–2pm47 flights80.9%
- 2pm–5pm79 flights79.7%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am106 flights54.3%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.3% on time, against 80.9% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 106 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on DEN to SBA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202557 flights75.0%
- Oct–Dec 202555 flights76.4%
- Jan–Mar 202680 flights79.7%
- Apr–Jun 202678 flights51.3%
Scale runs 45% 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 69.8% on time across 270 flights.
Southwest on DEN to SBA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 79.7% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 51.3%, a swing of 28 points on roughly 68 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.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 67% of the 4,359 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 67%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
67% 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 4,359 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 67 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 split is drawn from 4,359 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.3% on time across 270 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 270 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 Southwest on DEN to SBA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 270 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 69.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 268 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.