Route reliability record
SNA→DEN
Santa Ana to Denver
- Flights
- 3,714
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 846 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route 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 3,714 SNA to DEN flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,900 at 86.9% on time.
Best time to fly SNA to DEN: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.8% of the time and Saturday flights 88.0%, against 83.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 61 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,688 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.30%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
86.9% on time across 1,900 flights
These figures cover 3,714 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 SNA to DEN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 86.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 78.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,543 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 271 | 87.8% | 99 min | 0.37% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 1,900 | 86.9% | 70 min | 0.26% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,543 | 78.3% | 59 min | 0.32% | B+ |
United leads Southwest by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on SNA to DEN
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 Santa Ana to Denver
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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LAX → DENLos Angeles to Denver | United Airlines | 87.7% | 87.7% | 0.00% | 5am–8am, Sun | UA 1912 08:47 |
| 2. BUR → DENBurbank to Denver | United Airlines | 87.3% | 87.5% | 0.24% | 8am–11am, Sat | UA 1191 09:00 |
| 3. ONT → DENOntario to Denver | United Airlines | 86.8% | 87.1% | 0.38% | 5am–8am, Sun | UA 2446 05:00 |
| 4. SNA → DENSanta Ana to Denver | United Airlines | 86.7% | 86.9% | 0.26% | 8am–11am, Sat | UA 2656 18:26 |
| 5. ONT → DENOntario to Denver | Frontier Airlines | 85.9% | 86.5% | 0.72% | 5am–8am, Fri | F9 1500 06:00 |
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 27 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am636 flights93.4%
- 8am–11am781 flights93.8%
- 11am–2pm1,071 flights84.1%
- 2pm–5pm604 flights66.4%
- 5pm–8pm489 flights76.7%
- 8pm–5am133 flights71.4%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 93.8% of the time, against 66.4% for the afternoon window. That is 27 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 1,071 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SNA to DEN 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 SNA to DEN, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 93.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 66.4%, a wide gap of 27.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am93.4%
- 8–11am93.8%
- 11am–2pm84.1%
- 2–5pm66.4%
- 5–8pm76.7%
- 8pm–5am71.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
August is the worst month at 74.6% on time, 16 points below April, the best at 90.5%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 340 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 81.1%, a spread of 7 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 40,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 40,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 40,293 reported delay minutes.
38% 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 15,000 minutes out of 40,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.30%, 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 actually costs
6.1% 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.
The 846 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 runs 80.6% on time across 3,710 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 3,714 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 DEN 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. April runs 90.5% on time and August 74.6%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 3,688 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SNA to DEN questions
How often is SNA to DEN delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.6% of the 3,714 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SNA to DEN?
United Airlines leads at 86.9% on time across 1,900 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 78.3%, a gap of 9 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 SNA to DEN?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 93.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 66.4%, 27 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 August delays on SNA to DEN?
August is the weakest month at 74.6% on time, compared with 90.5% in April. Across the year that is 16 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
- DEN to SNA — the return legseparate record
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on SNA to DEN87.8%
- United Airlines on SNA to DEN86.9%
- Southwest Airlines on SNA to DEN78.3%
- SNA to SFO, a related route65.5%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- SNA to PHX, a related route82.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record87.8%
- United Airlines on-time record86.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.3%
- 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. SNA to DEN and DEN to SNA 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.