Route reliability record
SNA→LAS
Santa Ana to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 4,080
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 226 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 5 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 4,080 SNA to LAS flights, of which Spirit Airlines flew 606 at 89.9% on time.
Best time to fly SNA to LAS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.2% of the time and Saturday flights 88.9%, against 82.7% for the route overall.
Spirit Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 89.9% on time across 606 flights.
Key figures
On time
82.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,049 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.71%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Spirit
89.9% on time across 606 flights
These figures cover 4,080 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SNA to LAS
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Spirit Airlines arrives on time 89.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 81.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,513 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines | 606 | 89.9% | 80 min | 1.98% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 726 | 86.5% | 95 min | 0.69% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,513 | 81.0% | 54 min | 0.32% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 235 | 70.6% | 94 min | 1.70% | C |
Spirit 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 LAS
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.
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Santa Ana to Las Vegas
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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SNA → LASSanta Ana to Las Vegas | Spirit Airlines | 88.1% | 89.9% | 1.98% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. SNA → LASSanta Ana to Las Vegas | SkyWest Airlines | 85.9% | 86.5% | 0.69% | 11am–2pm, Wed | OO 4078 09:59 |
| 3. LAX → LASLos Angeles to Las Vegas | United Airlines | 82.7% | 83.1% | 0.51% | 8am–11am, Wed | UA 1006 08:15 |
| 4. LAX → LASLos Angeles to Las Vegas | Spirit Airlines | 81.8% | 82.9% | 1.31% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. BUR → LASBurbank to Las Vegas | Spirit Airlines | 81.4% | 84.0% | 3.13% | 2pm–5pm, Tue | — |
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 25 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am589 flights96.2%
- 8am–11am733 flights88.5%
- 11am–2pm761 flights85.9%
- 2pm–5pm673 flights72.8%
- 5pm–8pm826 flights79.8%
- 8pm–5am498 flights71.5%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 96.2% of the time, against 71.5% for the overnight window. That is 25 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 826 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SNA to LAS 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 LAS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 96.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 71.5%, a wide gap of 24.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am96.2%
- 8–11am88.5%
- 11am–2pm85.9%
- 2–5pm72.8%
- 5–8pm79.8%
- 8pm–5am71.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 12 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 77.0% on time, 12 points below January, the best at 89.0%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 390 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 76.9%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 46,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 46,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 45,949 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 96.2% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.71%, 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.
At 226 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 runs 81.3% on time across 4,085 flights, within about a point 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 4,080 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 LAS 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. January runs 89.0% on time and August 77.0%, a swing of 12 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 4,049 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SNA to LAS questions
How often is SNA to LAS 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 17.3% of the 4,080 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 LAS?
Spirit Airlines leads at 89.9% on time across 606 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 81.0%, 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 LAS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 71.5%, 25 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 LAS?
August is the weakest month at 77.0% on time, compared with 89.0% in January. Across the year that is 12 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
- LAS to SNA — the return legseparate record
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on SNA to LAS89.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on SNA to LAS86.5%
- Southwest Airlines on SNA to LAS81.0%
- Frontier Airlines on SNA to LAS70.6%
- SNA to SFO, a related route65.5%
- LAX to LAS, a related route75.8%
- SNA to PHX, a related route82.3%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record89.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record86.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record81.0%
- 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 LAS and LAS to SNA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed SNA to LAS’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.