Carrier route record
WNDEN→SNA
Southwest Airlines · Denver to Santa Ana
- Flights
- 1,534
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 42%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on DEN to SNA sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,534 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on DEN to SNA runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 45 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,527 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.39%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.1%
Every carrier on DEN to SNA, 3,696 flights
These figures cover 1,534 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on DEN to SNA
Southwest flew 1,534 of the 3,696 flights on DEN to SNA, about 42% of it. Its 73.1% on time is 7 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 86.9% to Southwest at 73.1%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 292 | 86.9% | 58 min | 0.34% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 1,870 | 84.8% | 49 min | 0.32% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,534 | 73.1% | 44 min | 0.39% | 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 28 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–8am29 flights—
- 8am–11am459 flights86.9%
- 11am–2pm262 flights79.2%
- 2pm–5pm176 flights73.3%
- 5pm–8pm399 flights59.1%
- 8pm–5am209 flights60.9%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.1% on time, against 86.9% for the 8am–11am 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 459 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on DEN to SNA through the year
June is the worst month at 49.6% on time, 36 points below January, the best at 85.3%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 136 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 67.2%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 18,000 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% 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 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 52 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 17,950 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 6,256 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.39%, below the national 1.81% 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
5.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 846 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 77.5% on time across 1,535 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,534 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on DEN to SNA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 85.3% on time and June 49.6%, a swing of 36 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,527 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to SNA, every carrier
- Southwest on SNA to DEN, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to SNA86.9%
- United Airlines on DEN to SNA84.8%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.