Route reliability record
LAS→SBA
Las Vegas to Santa Barbara
- Flights
- 890
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 289 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That rests on 890 LAS to SBA flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly LAS to SBA: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.0%, against 76.9% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 879 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.01%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
76.9% on time across 890 flights
These figures cover 890 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LAS 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 890 | 76.9% | 50 min | 1.01% | B |
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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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1 flights—
- 8am–11am209 flights83.2%
- 11am–2pm134 flights86.6%
- 2pm–5pm169 flights68.5%
- 5pm–8pm79 flights85.7%
- 8pm–5am298 flights70.4%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 86.6% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 68.5%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 298 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAS 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 LAS to SBA, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 86.6% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 68.5%, a wide gap of 18.1 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am83.2%
- 11am–2pm86.6%
- 2–5pm68.5%
- 5–8pm85.7%
- 8pm–5am70.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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 September, when the on-time rate falls to 63.2%. January is the strongest month at 92.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 29 points. March was the busiest month here, with 83 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 67.8%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 10,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
62% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 62 to one. The split is drawn from 10,062 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.01% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.3% 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 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 289 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 86.7% on time across 890 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
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 SBA 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 76.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 879 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAS to SBA questions
How often is LAS 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 23.1% of the 890 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is LAS to SBA compared with the rest of the country?
76.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAS to SBA?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 86.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 68.5%, 18 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 September delays on LAS to SBA?
September is the weakest month at 63.2% on time, compared with 92.2% in January. Across the year that is 29 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 LAS — the return legseparate record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- LAS to LAX, a related route77.9%
- SFO to SBA, a related route78.2%
- LAS to DEN, a related route76.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.9%
- 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. LAS to SBA and SBA to LAS 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.