Route reliability record
SNA→SFO
Santa Ana to San Francisco
- Flights
- 4,771
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 372 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,771 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 3,564 at 71.2% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 73 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,663 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.47%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
71.2% on time across 3,564 flights
These figures cover 4,771 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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: 3 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 | 50 | 85.7% | 35 min | 2.00% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 3,564 | 71.2% | 67 min | 1.63% | C |
| United Airlines | 1,011 | 68.1% | 63 min | 0.89% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 146 | 58.3% | 95 min | 1.37% | D |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 71.2%, 3 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 30 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am646 flights87.0%
- 8am–11am729 flights64.9%
- 11am–2pm799 flights71.7%
- 2pm–5pm1,071 flights72.7%
- 5pm–8pm1,234 flights64.8%
- 8pm–5am292 flights56.7%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.7% on time, against 87.0% 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. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 1,234 flights scheduled in it.
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. October was the busiest month here, with 448 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.2%. 18 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 53% of the 93,000 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.
- 53%National Airspace System
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
53% 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 49,000 minutes out of 93,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 92,880 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.47% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.80%.
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. 11.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 80.3% on time across 4,726 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,771 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. 4,663 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SNA to SFO questions
How often is SNA to SFO delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.7% of the 4,771 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SNA to SFO?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 71.2% on time across 3,564 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 68.1%, a gap of 3 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 87.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 56.7%, 30 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 record85.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record71.2%
- United Airlines on-time record68.1%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.