Route reliability record
SNA→OAK
Santa Ana to Oakland
- Flights
- 2,355
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 371 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 2,355 SNA to OAK flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly SNA to OAK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 97.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.5%, against 84.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 70 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,340 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.64%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
84.3% on time across 2,355 flights
These figures cover 2,355 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 OAK
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,355 | 84.3% | 47 min | 0.64% | B+ |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Santa Ana to Oakland
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. LAX → SJCLos Angeles to San Jose | SkyWest Airlines | 90.3% | 90.7% | 0.39% | 8am–11am, Tue | OO 3883 18:00 |
| 2. LGB → OAKLong Beach to Oakland | Southwest Airlines | 88.1% | 88.5% | 0.45% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ONT → SJCOntario to San Jose | Southwest Airlines | 85.8% | 85.9% | 0.08% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. LGB → SJCLong Beach to San Jose | Southwest Airlines | 85.8% | 86.0% | 0.24% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 5. ONT → OAKOntario to Oakland | Southwest Airlines | 85.5% | 86.0% | 0.55% | 5am–8am, 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 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am327 flights97.6%
- 8am–11am492 flights93.2%
- 11am–2pm391 flights83.1%
- 2pm–5pm440 flights77.6%
- 5pm–8pm479 flights77.2%
- 8pm–5am226 flights75.4%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 97.6% of the time, against 75.4% for the overnight 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 492 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SNA to OAK 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 OAK, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 97.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 75.4%, a wide gap of 22.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am97.6%
- 8–11am93.2%
- 11am–2pm83.1%
- 2–5pm77.6%
- 5–8pm77.2%
- 8pm–5am75.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
June is the worst month at 71.4% on time, 20 points below September, the best at 91.1%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 218 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 78.2%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 70% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 70%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 5%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
70% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 70 to one. The split is drawn from 17,222 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 97.6% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.64%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.5% 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.
At 371 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 84.6% on time across 2,356 flights, within half 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 2,355 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 OAK 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. September runs 91.1% on time and June 71.4%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,340 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SNA to OAK questions
How often is SNA to OAK 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 15.7% of the 2,355 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is SNA to OAK compared with the rest of the country?
84.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SNA to OAK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 97.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 75.4%, 22 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 June delays on SNA to OAK?
June is the weakest month at 71.4% on time, compared with 91.1% in September. Across the year that is 20 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
- OAK to SNA — the return legseparate record
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- Oakland International (OAK) delay statistics
- SNA to SFO, a related route65.5%
- SAN to OAK, a related route72.9%
- SNA to PHX, a related route82.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record84.3%
- 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 OAK and OAK 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.