Carrier route record
OOSNA→SFO
SkyWest Airlines · Santa Ana to San Francisco
- Flights
- 3,564
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 75%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on SNA to SFO sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,564 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so SkyWest on SNA to SFO runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 64 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,469 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.63%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.3%
Every carrier on SNA to SFO, 4,771 flights
These figures cover 3,564 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.9% 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
SkyWest against every carrier on SNA to SFO
SkyWest flew 3,564 of the 4,771 flights on SNA to SFO, most of the route. Its 71.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 70.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 85.7% to Frontier at 58.3%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 50 | 85.7% | 35 min | 2.00% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 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 |
Flight by flight
SkyWest flight numbers on SNA to SFO
Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 32 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am333 flights89.1%
- 8am–11am672 flights66.3%
- 11am–2pm691 flights71.2%
- 2pm–5pm954 flights76.1%
- 5pm–8pm652 flights65.6%
- 8pm–5am262 flights57.3%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 57.3% on time, against 89.1% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 954 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on SNA to SFO through the year
June is the worst month at 36.8% on time, 53 points below March, the best at 90.0%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 350 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.9%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 51% of the 67,000 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.
- 51%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
51% 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 34,000 minutes out of 67,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 66,929 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.63% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.04%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.9% 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 79.4% on time across 3,521 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 3,564 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 SkyWest on SNA to SFO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 90.0% on time and June 36.8%, a swing of 53 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 3,469 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SNA to SFO, every carrier
- SkyWest on SFO to SNA, the return leg
- United Airlines on SNA to SFO68.1%
- Frontier Airlines on SNA to SFO58.3%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.