Carrier route record
OOSAN→SFO
SkyWest Airlines · San Diego to San Francisco
- Flights
- 1,551
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 24%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on SAN to SFO sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 10 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,551 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 2,598 at 70.6% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so SkyWest on SAN to SFO runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 96 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,491 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.74%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
65.0%
Every carrier on SAN to SFO, 6,583 flights
These figures cover 1,551 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.9% 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 SAN to SFO
SkyWest flew 1,551 of the 6,583 flights on SAN to SFO, about 24% of it. Its 68.0% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 65.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 70.6% to Frontier at 47.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 70.6% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 58.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,935 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,598 | 70.6% | 60 min | 0.65% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 1,551 | 68.0% | 62 min | 1.74% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,935 | 58.4% | 61 min | 1.09% | D |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 303 | 54.0% | 55 min | 0.99% | F+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 196 | 47.0% | 83 min | 7.65% | F− |
The spread between United and Southwest is 12 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 12 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
SkyWest flight numbers on SAN to SFO
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 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am293 flights68.5%
- 8am–11am317 flights58.6%
- 11am–2pm347 flights67.2%
- 2pm–5pm251 flights70.3%
- 5pm–8pm168 flights74.7%
- 8pm–5am175 flights75.7%
Scale runs 50% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is the strongest at 75.7% on time. The full set of windows spans 17 points.
Across the year
SkyWest on SAN to SFO through the year
June is the worst month at 32.5% on time, 52 points below September, the best at 84.7%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 180 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 74.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 61.8%. 12 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. National Airspace System accounts for 56% of the 30,000 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.
- 56%National Airspace System
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
56% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 17,000 minutes out of 30,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 29,727 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.74% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 2.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 447 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 64.8% on time across 1,515 flights, 3 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,551 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.
What to do with this
Booking SkyWest on SAN to SFO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 84.7% on time and June 32.5%, a swing of 52 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,491 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SAN to SFO, every carrier
- SkyWest on SFO to SAN, the return leg
- United Airlines on SAN to SFO70.6%
- Southwest Airlines on SAN to SFO58.4%
- Alaska Airlines on SAN to SFO54.0%
- Frontier Airlines on SAN to SFO47.0%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.