Route reliability record
SNA→SFO
Santa Ana to San Francisco
- Flights
- 4,780
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 372 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route 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 77.4%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,780 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 3,545 at 75.0% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.4%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,685 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.49%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
SkyWest
75.0% on time across 3,545 flights
These figures cover 4,780 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% 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
Which airline is most reliable on SNA to SFO
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 | 80 | 87.3% | 33 min | 1.25% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 3,545 | 75.0% | 69 min | 1.61% | B |
| United Airlines | 1,011 | 70.1% | 63 min | 0.79% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 144 | 57.6% | 99 min | 3.47% | D− |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 75.0%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 26 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am642 flights87.3%
- 8am–11am682 flights70.9%
- 11am–2pm886 flights74.7%
- 2pm–5pm1,038 flights76.5%
- 5pm–8pm1,246 flights67.8%
- 8pm–5am286 flights61.2%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.2% on time, against 87.3% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 50 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.
Delays peak in May, when the on-time rate falls to 39.4%. March is the strongest month at 89.5%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 50 points.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.5%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 50% of the 85,000 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.
- 50%National Airspace System
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
50% 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 42,000 minutes out of 85,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.49% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.50%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.2% on time across 4,749 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,780 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 this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 89.5% on time and May 39.4%, a swing of 50 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else.
Common questions
SNA to SFO questions
How often is SNA to SFO delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.4% of the 4,780 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SNA to SFO?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 75.0% on time across 3,545 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 70.1%, a gap of 5 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 SFO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 61.2%, 26 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 May delays on SNA to SFO?
May is the weakest month at 39.4% on time, compared with 89.5% in March. Across the year that is 50 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
- SFO to SNA — the return legseparate record
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on-time record87.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record75.0%
- United Airlines on-time record70.1%
- 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
Direction matters. SNA to SFO and SFO to SNA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.