Route reliability record
OAK→SNA
Oakland to Santa Ana
- Flights
- 2,356
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 371 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 2,356 OAK to SNA flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly OAK to SNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.5%, against 84.6% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 73 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,335 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.85%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
84.6% on time across 2,349 flights
These figures cover 2,356 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 OAK to SNA
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 Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,349 | 84.6% | 44 min | 0.85% | B+ |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Oakland 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. 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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am354 flights96.6%
- 8am–11am466 flights90.9%
- 11am–2pm381 flights86.8%
- 2pm–5pm430 flights76.6%
- 5pm–8pm473 flights76.8%
- 8pm–5am252 flights81.4%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 96.6% of the time, against 76.6% for the afternoon 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 473 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter OAK 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 OAK to SNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 96.6% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 76.6%, a wide gap of 20.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am96.6%
- 8–11am90.9%
- 11am–2pm86.8%
- 2–5pm76.6%
- 5–8pm76.8%
- 8pm–5am81.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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 75.6% on time, 16 points below May, the best at 91.5%. 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 215 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.1%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 4%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
60% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 60 to one. The split is drawn from 15,691 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,479 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.85%, 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 3.1% 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 371 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 84.3% on time across 2,355 flights, within half 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 2,356 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. May runs 91.5% on time and August 75.6%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,335 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
OAK to SNA questions
How often is OAK to SNA delayed?
Roughly 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 15.4% of the 2,356 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is OAK to SNA compared with the rest of the country?
84.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 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 SNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 76.6%, 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 OAK to SNA?
August is the weakest month at 75.6% on time, compared with 91.5% in May. Across the year that is 16 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 OAK — the return legseparate record
- Oakland International (OAK) delay statistics
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- OAK to SAN, a related route62.7%
- SFO to SNA, a related route77.4%
- OAK to LAS, a related route76.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record84.6%
- 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 SNA and SNA to OAK 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.