Carrier route record
DLSLC→SNA
Delta Air Lines · Salt Lake City to Santa Ana
- Flights
- 1,606
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 86%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on SLC to SNA lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,606 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Delta's SLC to SNA record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 57 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,594 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.50%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
83.1%
Every carrier on SLC to SNA, 1,858 flights
These figures cover 1,606 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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
Delta against every carrier on SLC to SNA
Delta flew 1,606 of the 1,858 flights on SLC to SNA, most of the route. Its 83.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 83.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 86.5% to SkyWest at 82.0%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 101 | 86.5% | 68 min | 3.96% | A− |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,606 | 83.0% | 62 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 151 | 82.0% | 67 min | 0.66% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on SLC to SNA
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am78 flights84.0%
- 8am–11am283 flights90.0%
- 11am–2pm365 flights77.2%
- 2pm–5pm358 flights81.1%
- 5pm–8pm158 flights84.1%
- 8pm–5am364 flights84.5%
Scale runs 70% to 95%.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 77.2% on time against 90.0% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on SLC to SNA through the year
August is the worst month at 77.4% on time, 15 points below March, the best at 92.4%. 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 150 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.0%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on SLC to SNA runs when it is late
Delta on SLC to SNA often beats the schedule: 453 of 1,594 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 271 late arrivals split 119 under half an hour, 87 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 65 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early453 flights28.4%
- Within 15 min870 flights54.6%
- 15–29 min late119 flights7.5%
- 30–59 min late87 flights5.5%
- 1–2 hours late35 flights2.2%
- 2+ hours late30 flights1.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,594 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
48 of 242 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. 77 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on SLC to SNA
The latest arrival of the period was on 24 July 2026, 13 hours 18 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 24 July 2026 | 13 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 September 2025 | 12 hours 58 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 February 2026 | 9 hours 39 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 July 2026 | 9 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 September 2025 | 9 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 68% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 68%Carrier
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 68%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 16,842 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.50%, below the national 1.89% 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.1% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 588 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 86.5% on time across 1,606 flights, 4 points above 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,606 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 Delta on SLC to SNA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 92.4% on time and August 77.4%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,594 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SLC to SNA, every carrier
- Delta on SNA to SLC, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on SLC to SNA86.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on SLC to SNA82.0%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) 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.