Carrier route record
OOSAN→STS
SkyWest Airlines · San Diego to Santa Rosa
- Flights
- 833
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 78%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on SAN to STS carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 833 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on SAN to STS from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 792 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.08%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
77.5%
Every carrier on SAN to STS, 1,064 flights
These figures cover 833 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 SAN to STS
SkyWest flew 833 of the 1,064 flights on SAN to STS, most of the route. Its 80.1% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 80.1% to Southwest at 68.7%. One 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 833 | 80.1% | 51 min | 4.08% | B− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 231 | 68.7% | 47 min | 1.30% | C |
Flight by flight
SkyWest flight numbers on SAN to STS
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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am33 flights90.9%
- 8am–11am246 flights85.4%
- 11am–2pm172 flights72.9%
- 2pm–5pm35 flights71.4%
- 5pm–8pm58 flights89.5%
- 8pm–5am289 flights77.5%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.9% of the time, against 71.4% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 289 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on SAN to STS through the year
December is the weak month at 59.6% on time, against 90.7% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. November was the busiest month here, with 87 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 68.9%, a spread of 22 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on SAN to STS runs when it is late
SkyWest on SAN to STS often beats the schedule: 319 of 792 completed flights, 40%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 158 late arrivals split 47 under half an hour, 65 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 46 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early319 flights40.3%
- Within 15 min315 flights39.8%
- 15–29 min late47 flights5.9%
- 30–59 min late65 flights8.2%
- 1–2 hours late37 flights4.7%
- 2+ hours late9 flights1.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 792 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
37 of 171 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 22% of them. 24 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on SAN to STS
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 September 2025, 3 hours 51 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 18 September 2025 | 3 hours 51 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 2 November 2025 | 2 hours 54 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 30 August 2026 | 2 hours 49 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 December 2025 | 2 hours 45 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 13 June 2026 | 2 hours 43 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 8,065 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%National Airspace System
- 17%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,065 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 8,065 reported delay minutes.
33% 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 2,659 minutes out of 8,065, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.08%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.8% 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 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 508 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.9% on time across 830 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 833 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 SAN to STS
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.08% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 50 minutes; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 792 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.