Carrier route record
OOPHX→SBA
SkyWest Airlines · Phoenix to Santa Barbara
- Flights
- 408
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 28%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on PHX to SBA 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 an hour on average. That rests on 408 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 366 at 88.1% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, SkyWest's PHX to SBA record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 54 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 404 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.98%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
82.2%
Every carrier on PHX to SBA, 1,432 flights
These figures cover 408 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
SkyWest against every carrier on PHX to SBA
SkyWest flew 408 of the 1,432 flights on PHX to SBA, about 28% of it. Its 82.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 82.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 88.1% to American at 78.5%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 88.1% of the time; American Airlines manages 78.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 650 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 366 | 88.1% | 64 min | 0.82% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 8 | 87.5% | 84 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 408 | 82.7% | 68 min | 0.98% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 650 | 78.5% | 84 min | 1.08% | B |
Envoy leads American by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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.
Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 17 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am36 flights91.7%
- 8am–11am111 flights87.2%
- 11am–2pm14 flights—
- 2pm–5pm181 flights75.1%
- 5pm–8pm29 flights—
- 8pm–5am37 flights91.7%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.7% of the time, against 75.1% for the afternoon window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 181 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on PHX to SBA through the year
June is the worst month at 60.6% on time, 27 points below January, the best at 87.3%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 65 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 90.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.7%, a spread of 17 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on PHX to SBA runs when it is late
SkyWest on PHX to SBA often beats the schedule: 122 of 404 completed flights, 30%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 70 late arrivals split 23 under half an hour, 17 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 30 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early122 flights30.2%
- Within 15 min212 flights52.5%
- 15–29 min late23 flights5.7%
- 30–59 min late17 flights4.2%
- 1–2 hours late18 flights4.5%
- 2+ hours late12 flights3.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 404 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
12 of 73 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. 9 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on PHX to SBA
The latest arrival of the period was on 25 January 2026, 3 hours 46 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across January, March, December, April and June, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 25 January 2026 | 3 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 March 2026 | 3 hours 44 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 December 2025 | 3 hours 30 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 22 April 2026 | 3 hours 1 minute | Carrier |
| 19 June 2026 | 2 hours 57 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 50% of the 4,733 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,733 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 4,733 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,354 of the 4,733 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.98% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.4% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 455 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 84.1% on time across 408 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 408 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.
What to do with this
Booking SkyWest on PHX to SBA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 408 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 82.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 404 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to SBA, every carrier
- SkyWest on SBA to PHX, the return leg
- Envoy Air on PHX to SBA88.1%
- American Airlines on PHX to SBA78.5%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.