Route reliability record
GEG→SFO
Spokane to San Francisco
- Flights
- 890
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 733 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 a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 890 GEG to SFO flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly GEG to SFO: a 2pm–5pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 81.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.8%, against 72.2% 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 51 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 885 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.34%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
72.3% on time across 839 flights
These figures cover 890 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.2% 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 GEG to SFO
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 | 839 | 72.3% | 79 min | 0.36% | C+ |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 51 | 70.6% | 42 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on GEG to SFO
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 74 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am332 flights76.1%
- 8am–11am3 flights—
- 11am–2pm381 flights73.6%
- 2pm–5pm128 flights81.1%
- 5pm–8pm46 flights6.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 0% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 6.7% on time, against 81.1% for the 2pm–5pm 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 381 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter GEG to SFO 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 GEG to SFO, the best departure window is 2pm–5pm at 81.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 6.7%, a wide gap of 74.4 points. All US flights leaving 2pm–5pm ran 71.9%.
- 5–8am76.1%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm73.6%
- 2–5pm81.1%
- 5–8pm6.7%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 0% 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.
Delays peak in April, when the on-time rate falls to 50.8%. December is the strongest month at 85.5%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 35 points. July was the busiest month here, with 110 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 64.7%, a spread of 19 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 49% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%National Airspace System
- 22%Carrier
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%Extreme weather
49% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 9,168 minutes out of 19,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 18,876 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.34%, 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
11.2% 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 733 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 runs 74.0% on time across 885 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. 890 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 SFO after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 890 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 72.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 885 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GEG to SFO questions
How often is GEG to SFO 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 27.8% of the 890 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is GEG to SFO compared with the rest of the country?
72.2% 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 GEG to SFO?
The 2pm–5pm departure window is the strongest at 81.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 6.7%, 74 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 April delays on GEG to SFO?
April is the weakest month at 50.8% on time, compared with 85.5% in December. 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
- SFO to GEG — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- GEG to SEA, a related route85.7%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- GEG to DEN, a related route84.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record72.3%
- United Airlines on-time record70.6%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. GEG to SFO and SFO to GEG 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.