Carrier route record
WNDEN→SBA
Southwest Airlines · Denver to Santa Barbara
- Flights
- 287
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 27%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on DEN to SBA draws a D+. Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 287 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on DEN to SBA runs 14 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 136 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
63.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 284 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.70%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.4%
Every carrier on DEN to SBA, 1,058 flights
These figures cover 287 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on DEN to SBA
Southwest flew 287 of the 1,058 flights on DEN to SBA, about 27% of it. Its 63.7% on time is 9 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 75.6% to Southwest at 63.7%.
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 Airlines (this page)thin sample | 287 | 63.7% | 58 min | 0.70% | D+ |
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 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 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am16 flights—
- 11am–2pm46 flights82.6%
- 2pm–5pm79 flights73.4%
- 5pm–8pm4 flights—
- 8pm–5am142 flights52.1%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 52.1% on time, against 82.6% 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 142 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on DEN to SBA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202517 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202555 flights76.4%
- Jan–Mar 202680 flights79.7%
- Apr–Jun 202678 flights51.3%
- Jul–Sep 202657 flights45.5%
Scale runs 35% 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 63.7% on time across 287 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 Jul–Sep 2026 at 45.5%, a swing of 34 points on roughly 72 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 81.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 56.9%, a spread of 24 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on DEN to SBA runs when it is late
The 103 late arrivals split 33 under half an hour, 36 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 34 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early47 flights16.5%
- Within 15 min134 flights47.2%
- 15–29 min late33 flights11.6%
- 30–59 min late36 flights12.7%
- 1–2 hours late24 flights8.5%
- 2+ hours late10 flights3.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 284 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
18 of 109 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. 12 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on DEN to SBA
The latest arrival of the period was on 3 August 2026, 3 hours 37 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 3 August 2026 | 3 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 May 2026 | 3 hours 35 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 February 2026 | 3 hours 9 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 July 2026 | 3 hours 9 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 May 2026 | 2 hours 57 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 69% of the 5,931 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 69%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
69% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 5,931 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 69 to one. The split is drawn from 5,931 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.70%, 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 costs
12.0% 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.
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 85.3% on time across 287 flights, 22 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 22 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 287 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. 287 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 63.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 284 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.