Carrier route record
WNSBA→DEN
Southwest Airlines · Santa Barbara to Denver
- Flights
- 270
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 25%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on SBA to DEN lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 270 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on SBA to DEN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 268 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.74%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
83.6%
Every carrier on SBA to DEN, 1,097 flights
These figures cover 270 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on SBA to DEN
Southwest flew 270 of the 1,097 flights on SBA to DEN, about 25% of it. Its 81.3% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 83.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 84.4% to Southwest at 81.3%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 827 | 84.4% | 68 min | 1.33% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample | 270 | 81.3% | 54 min | 0.74% | B+ |
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 39 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–8am105 flights96.2%
- 8am–11am14 flights—
- 11am–2pm97 flights77.9%
- 2pm–5pm54 flights57.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 96.2% of the time, against 57.4% for the afternoon window. That is 39 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 105 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on SBA to DEN through the year
- Jul–Sep 202557 flights63.2%
- Oct–Dec 202555 flights68.5%
- Jan–Mar 202680 flights87.3%
- Apr–Jun 202678 flights97.4%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. 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 81.3% on time across 270 flights.
Southwest on SBA to DEN did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 97.4% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 63.2%, a swing of 34 points on roughly 68 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 82.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 74.0%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 53% of the 2,722 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.
- 53%National Airspace System
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
- 5%Carrier
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 2,722 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 2,722 reported delay minutes.
53% 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 1,455 minutes out of 2,722, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.74%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs
6.3% 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 about 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 916 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.8% on time across 270 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 270 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 Southwest on SBA to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 270 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 81.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 268 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SBA to DEN, every carrier
- Southwest on DEN to SBA, the return leg
- United Airlines on SBA to DEN84.4%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- 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.