Route reliability record
OAK→BUR
Oakland to Burbank
- Flights
- 2,694
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 325 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That rests on 2,694 OAK to BUR flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly OAK to BUR: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.9%, against 81.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 46 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,662 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.93%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
81.9% on time across 2,694 flights
These figures cover 2,694 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on OAK to BUR
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 | 2,694 | 81.9% | 55 min | 0.93% | B+ |
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Oakland to Burbank
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. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SJC → LAXSan Jose to Los Angeles | SkyWest Airlines | 91.3% | 91.7% | 0.44% | 5am–8am, Tue | OO 3883 20:05 |
| 2. SJC → LAXSan Jose to Los Angeles | Delta Air Lines | 89.5% | 91.6% | 2.31% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 3. SJC → SNASan Jose to Santa Ana | Southwest Airlines | 85.9% | 86.6% | 0.78% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | — |
| 4. OAK → LGBOakland to Long Beach | Southwest Airlines | 85.4% | 85.7% | 0.32% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. SJC → LGBSan Jose to Long Beach | Southwest Airlines | 84.3% | 84.4% | 0.16% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am404 flights92.6%
- 8am–11am510 flights91.8%
- 11am–2pm523 flights83.9%
- 2pm–5pm398 flights77.0%
- 5pm–8pm625 flights73.1%
- 8pm–5am234 flights69.5%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.6% of the time, against 69.5% for the overnight window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 625 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter OAK to BUR 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 OAK to BUR, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 69.5%, a wide gap of 23.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.6%
- 8–11am91.8%
- 11am–2pm83.9%
- 2–5pm77.0%
- 5–8pm73.1%
- 8pm–5am69.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
June is the worst month at 72.6% on time, 19 points below January, the best at 91.4%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 256 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.7%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 27,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 27,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 53 to one. The split is drawn from 26,517 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 92.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.93% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.26%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.2% 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 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 325 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 84.8% on time across 2,694 flights, within 3 points 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 2,694 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 BUR 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 91.4% on time and June 72.6%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,662 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
OAK to BUR questions
How often is OAK to BUR delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.1% of the 2,694 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is OAK to BUR compared with the rest of the country?
81.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on OAK to BUR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 69.5%, 23 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 June delays on OAK to BUR?
June is the weakest month at 72.6% on time, compared with 91.4% in January. Across the year that is 19 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
- BUR to OAK — the return legseparate record
- Oakland International (OAK) delay statistics
- Hollywood Burbank (BUR) delay statistics
- OAK to SAN, a related route62.7%
- LAS to BUR, a related route78.9%
- OAK to LAS, a related route76.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record81.9%
- 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. OAK to BUR and BUR to OAK are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed OAK to BUR’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.