Carrier route record
OOSFO→PSP
SkyWest Airlines · San Francisco to Palm Springs
- Flights
- 2,163
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 86%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on SFO to PSP sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,163 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on SFO to PSP from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,134 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.20%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.7%
Every carrier on SFO to PSP, 2,504 flights
These figures cover 2,163 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.2% 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 SFO to PSP
SkyWest flew 2,163 of the 2,504 flights on SFO to PSP, most of the route. Its 75.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 87.5% to Alaska at 58.3%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 307 | 87.5% | 56 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 2,163 | 75.3% | 78 min | 1.20% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 22 | 72.7% | 65 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 12 | 58.3% | 65 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Flight by flight
SkyWest flight numbers on SFO to PSP
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 16 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–8am24 flights—
- 8am–11am339 flights84.3%
- 11am–2pm371 flights68.5%
- 2pm–5pm554 flights72.5%
- 5pm–8pm360 flights82.6%
- 8pm–5am515 flights71.1%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 68.5% on time against 84.3% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 554 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on SFO to PSP through the year
June is the worst month at 58.2% on time, 28 points below September, the best at 85.9%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 210 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.3%. 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 44% of the 41,000 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.
- 44%National Airspace System
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% 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 18,000 minutes out of 41,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 41,108 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 84.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.20% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
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. 11.2% 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 421 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 65.7% on time across 2,178 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,163 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 SFO to PSP
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 85.9% on time and June 58.2%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,134 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
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.