Carrier route record

OOPHX→SBA

SkyWest Airlines · Phoenix to Santa Barbara

Flights: 384
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 27%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 384 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, SkyWest's PHX to SBA record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 46 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 377 completed flights

Avg delay

76 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.56%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

80.8%

Every carrier on PHX to SBA, 1,432 flights

These figures cover 384 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

SkyWest against every carrier on PHX to SBA

SkyWest flew 384 of the 1,432 flights on PHX to SBA, about 27% of it. Its 82.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 80.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 91.7% to American at 77.2%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to SBA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	12	91.7%	84 min	0.00%	A+
Envoy Airthin sample	359	85.6%	56 min	1.11%	A
SkyWest Airlines (this page)	384	82.2%	76 min	1.56%	B
American Airlines	677	77.2%	95 min	1.18%	B

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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am16 flights—
8am–11am111 flights85.8%
11am–2pm14 flights—
2pm–5pm162 flights74.1%
5pm–8pm44 flights86.0%
8pm–5am37 flights91.7%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is the strongest at 91.7% on time. The full set of windows spans 18 points.

Across the year

SkyWest on PHX to SBA through the year

Jul–Sep 202529 flights—
Oct–Dec 202582 flights87.5%
Jan–Mar 2026139 flights82.5%
Apr–Jun 2026134 flights79.1%

Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 82.2% on time across 384 flights.

Quarter by quarter SkyWest on PHX to SBA held fairly steady: 87.5% in Oct–Dec 2025, 82.5% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 79.1% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 8 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 90.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 74.5%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why SkyWest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 54% of the 5,062 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Carrier
54%
Late-arriving aircraft
33%
National Airspace System
7%
Extreme weather
6%

The largest share of delay minutes, 54%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 2,756 of the 5,062 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,062 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.56% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.26%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

8.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over 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 8pm–5am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg runs 82.7% on time across 384 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 384 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. 384 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 82.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 377 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures