Carrier route record
F9SFO→SNA
Frontier Airlines · San Francisco to Santa Ana
- Flights
- 145
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 3%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on SFO to SNA 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 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 145 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,011 at 83.9% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Frontier on SFO to SNA runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 40 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 144 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.69%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.3%
Every carrier on SFO to SNA, 4,726 flights
These figures cover 145 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.1% 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
Frontier against every carrier on SFO to SNA
Frontier flew 145 of the 4,726 flights on SFO to SNA, about 3% of it. Its 73.6% on time is 7 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 87.8% to Frontier at 73.6%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 49 | 87.8% | 71 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 1,011 | 83.9% | 51 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 3,521 | 79.4% | 60 min | 1.42% | B |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 145 | 73.6% | 85 min | 0.69% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 83.9%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Departure window
When Frontier runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am33 flights90.9%
- 11am–2pm28 flights—
- 2pm–5pm16 flights—
- 5pm–8pm68 flights68.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.9% of the time, against 68.7% for the evening window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 68 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on SFO to SNA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202543 flights65.1%
- Oct–Dec 202531 flights83.9%
- Jan–Mar 202614 flights—
- Apr–Jun 202657 flights69.6%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. 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 73.6% on time across 145 flights.
Frontier on SFO to SNA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 83.9% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 65.1%, a swing of 19 points on roughly 48 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, Friday is the strongest day at 79.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 67.6%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Frontier runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 83% of the 3,220 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.
- 83%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%Carrier
- 5%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
83% 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 3,220 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 81 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 3,220 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 90.9% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.69%, 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.1% 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 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 58.3% on time across 146 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. 145 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 Frontier on SFO to SNA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 145 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 73.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 144 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to SNA, every carrier
- Frontier on SNA to SFO, the return leg
- United Airlines on SFO to SNA83.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on SFO to SNA79.4%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.