Carrier route record
OOSFO→SBA
SkyWest Airlines · San Francisco to Santa Barbara
- Flights
- 692
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 41%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on SFO to SBA 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 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 692 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on SFO to SBA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 674 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.02%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.2%
Every carrier on SFO to SBA, 1,678 flights
These figures cover 692 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 SFO to SBA
SkyWest flew 692 of the 1,678 flights on SFO to SBA, about 41% of it. Its 75.8% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 79.9% to SkyWest at 75.8%.
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 | 986 | 79.9% | 55 min | 0.51% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 692 | 75.8% | 77 min | 2.02% | B |
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Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 692 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am146 flights81.4%
- 11am–2pm5 flights—
- 2pm–5pm291 flights71.8%
- 5pm–8pm111 flights81.5%
- 8pm–5am139 flights74.6%
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 81.5% on time. The full set of windows spans 10 points.
Across the year
SkyWest on SFO to SBA through the year
June is the worst month at 66.7% on time, 14 points below July, the best at 81.1%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 90 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 57.6%, a spread of 31 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on SFO to SBA runs when it is late
SkyWest on SFO to SBA often beats the schedule: 202 of 674 completed flights, 30%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 163 late arrivals split 49 under half an hour, 63 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 51 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early202 flights30.0%
- Within 15 min309 flights45.8%
- 15–29 min late49 flights7.3%
- 30–59 min late63 flights9.3%
- 1–2 hours late29 flights4.3%
- 2+ hours late22 flights3.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 674 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
30 of 176 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. 17 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on SFO to SBA
The latest arrival of the period was on 31 October 2025, 12 hours 16 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 31 October 2025 | 12 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 February 2026 | 12 hours 13 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 November 2025 | 11 hours 52 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 November 2025 | 10 hours 34 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 26 December 2025 | 10 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,709 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 12,505 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.02% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.58%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.6% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 262 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 5pm–8pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 55.6% on time across 692 flights, 20 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 20 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 692 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 SFO to SBA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 692 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 75.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 674 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to SBA, every carrier
- SkyWest on SBA to SFO, the return leg
- United Airlines on SFO to SBA79.9%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.