Carrier route record
OOSFO→SBP
SkyWest Airlines · San Francisco to San Luis Obispo
- Flights
- 834
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 73%
- 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 SBP sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 834 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so SkyWest on SFO to SBP runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 42 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 819 completed flights
Avg delay
114 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.32%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.1%
Every carrier on SFO to SBP, 1,138 flights
These figures cover 834 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
SkyWest against every carrier on SFO to SBP
SkyWest flew 834 of the 1,138 flights on SFO to SBP, most of the route. Its 73.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 73.1% to United at 69.4%. 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) | 834 | 73.1% | 114 min | 1.32% | C |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 304 | 69.4% | 60 min | 0.66% | C+ |
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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.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am176 flights71.0%
- 11am–2pm126 flights74.6%
- 2pm–5pm111 flights61.9%
- 5pm–8pm202 flights75.3%
- 8pm–5am219 flights77.6%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 77.6% on time across 219 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 219 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on SFO to SBP through the year
July is the worst month at 64.5% on time, 21 points below March, the best at 85.7%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 120 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 62.4%, a spread of 21 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on SFO to SBP runs when it is late
SkyWest on SFO to SBP often beats the schedule: 207 of 819 completed flights, 25%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 220 late arrivals split 65 under half an hour, 67 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 88 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early207 flights25.3%
- Within 15 min392 flights47.9%
- 15–29 min late65 flights7.9%
- 30–59 min late67 flights8.2%
- 1–2 hours late40 flights4.9%
- 2+ hours late48 flights5.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 819 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 202 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 23 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 41 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at SBP.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on SFO to SBP
The latest arrival of the period was on 24 December 2025, 15 hours 10 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across December, March, February and April, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 24 December 2025 | 15 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 December 2025 | 14 hours 40 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 20 March 2026 | 14 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 28 February 2026 | 12 hours 47 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 20 April 2026 | 12 hours 38 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 25,000 reported delay minutes.
- 30%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 19% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 25,061 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.32% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.48%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
10.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 191 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 58.2% on time across 836 flights, 15 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 15 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 834 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 SBP
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 834 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 73.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 819 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to SBP, every carrier
- SkyWest on SBP to SFO, the return leg
- United Airlines on SFO to SBP69.4%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.