Route reliability record
LAS→SNA
Las Vegas to Santa Ana
- Flights
- 4,085
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 226 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That rests on 4,085 LAS to SNA flights, of which Spirit Airlines flew 605 at 89.1% on time.
Best time to fly LAS to SNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 86.6%, against 81.3% for the route overall.
Spirit Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 89.1% on time across 605 flights.
Key figures
On time
81.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,050 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.73%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Spirit
89.1% on time across 605 flights
These figures cover 4,085 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 SNA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Spirit Airlines arrives on time 89.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 77.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,518 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines | 605 | 89.1% | 70 min | 1.82% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 726 | 87.0% | 80 min | 0.55% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 236 | 82.1% | 58 min | 0.42% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,518 | 77.7% | 48 min | 0.56% | B+ |
Spirit leads Southwest by 11 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on LAS to SNA
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Las Vegas to Santa Ana
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LAS → SNALas Vegas to Santa Ana | Spirit Airlines | 87.5% | 89.1% | 1.82% | 8pm–5am, Sat | — |
| 2. LAS → SNALas Vegas to Santa Ana | SkyWest Airlines | 86.5% | 87.0% | 0.55% | 2pm–5pm, Wed | OO 4078 08:00 |
| 3. LAS → BURLas Vegas to Burbank | Spirit Airlines | 86.0% | 88.4% | 2.69% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. LAS → LAXLas Vegas to Los Angeles | Spirit Airlines | 85.8% | 86.9% | 1.30% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 5. LAS → LAXLas Vegas to Los Angeles | United Airlines | 85.1% | 85.6% | 0.57% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 2039 06:00 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 20 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am276 flights93.4%
- 8am–11am958 flights87.3%
- 11am–2pm705 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm748 flights76.0%
- 5pm–8pm787 flights73.9%
- 8pm–5am611 flights82.6%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.4% of the time, against 73.9% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 958 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAS to SNA 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 SNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 73.9%, a wide gap of 19.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.4%
- 8–11am87.3%
- 11am–2pm81.2%
- 2–5pm76.0%
- 5–8pm73.9%
- 8pm–5am82.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
August is the worst month at 74.3% on time, 15 points below January, the best at 89.1%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 390 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 76.6%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 41,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 41,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. The split is drawn from 40,771 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 17,000 of the 41,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.73%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 226 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 82.7% on time across 4,080 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,085 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SNA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 89.1% on time and August 74.3%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 4,050 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAS to SNA questions
How often is LAS to SNA delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.7% of the 4,085 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LAS to SNA?
Spirit Airlines leads at 89.1% on time across 605 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 77.7%, a gap of 11 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAS to SNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.9%, 20 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 August delays on LAS to SNA?
August is the weakest month at 74.3% on time, compared with 89.1% in January. Across the year that is 15 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
- SNA to LAS — the return legseparate record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on LAS to SNA89.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on LAS to SNA87.0%
- Frontier Airlines on LAS to SNA82.1%
- Southwest Airlines on LAS to SNA77.7%
- LAS to LAX, a related route77.9%
- SFO to SNA, a related route77.4%
- LAS to DEN, a related route76.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record89.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record87.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record82.1%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LAS to SNA and SNA 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.