Route reliability record
SFO→SNA
San Francisco to Santa Ana
- Flights
- 4,701
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 372 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 4,701 SFO to SNA flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,012 at 82.5% on time.
Best time to fly SFO to SNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.8% of the time and Saturday flights 84.7%, against 77.4% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,625 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.43%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
82.5% on time across 1,012 flights
These figures cover 4,701 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
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to SNA
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,012 | 82.5% | 52 min | 0.30% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 3,497 | 76.9% | 61 min | 1.69% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 154 | 63.3% | 87 min | 2.60% | D |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 38 | 32.4% | 55 min | 2.63% | F |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 82.5%, 6 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on SFO to SNA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly San Francisco to Santa Ana
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SJC → LAXSan Jose to Los Angeles | SkyWest Airlines | 91.3% | 91.7% | 0.44% | 5am–8am, Tue | OO 3883 20:05 |
| 2. SJC → LAXSan Jose to Los Angeles | Delta Air Lines | 89.5% | 91.6% | 2.31% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 3. SJC → SNASan Jose to Santa Ana | Southwest Airlines | 85.9% | 86.6% | 0.78% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | — |
| 4. OAK → LGBOakland to Long Beach | Southwest Airlines | 85.4% | 85.7% | 0.32% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. SJC → LGBSan Jose to Long Beach | Southwest Airlines | 84.3% | 84.4% | 0.16% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 21 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am576 flights92.8%
- 8am–11am1,010 flights76.9%
- 11am–2pm985 flights73.1%
- 2pm–5pm982 flights71.8%
- 5pm–8pm932 flights78.2%
- 8pm–5am216 flights79.7%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.8% of the time, against 71.8% for the afternoon window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 1,010 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SFO to SNA by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On SFO to SNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 71.8%, a wide gap of 21.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.8%
- 8–11am76.9%
- 11am–2pm73.1%
- 2–5pm71.8%
- 5–8pm78.2%
- 8pm–5am79.7%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
July is the worst month at 62.5% on time, 27 points below March, the best at 89.8%. 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 448 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.2%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 63,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 63,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 63,333 reported delay minutes.
34% 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 21,000 minutes out of 63,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.43% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.9% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 372 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 65.5% on time across 4,771 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.
The sample behind these figures is 4,701 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SNA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 89.8% on time and July 62.5%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,625 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SFO to SNA questions
How often is SFO to SNA delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.6% of the 4,701 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to SNA?
United Airlines leads at 82.5% on time across 1,012 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 76.9%, a gap of 6 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SFO to SNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 71.8%, 21 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are July delays on SFO to SNA?
July is the weakest month at 62.5% on time, compared with 89.8% in March. Across the year that is 27 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- SNA to SFO — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- United Airlines on SFO to SNA82.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on SFO to SNA76.9%
- Frontier Airlines on SFO to SNA63.3%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- PHX to SNA, a related route79.4%
- SFO to SEA, a related route72.3%
- United Airlines on-time record82.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record76.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record63.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. SFO to SNA and SNA to SFO are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.