Carrier route record
UASNA→SFO
United Airlines · Santa Ana to San Francisco
- Flights
- 1,011
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 21%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United 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, 10 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,011 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so United on SNA to SFO runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 95 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,001 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.89%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.3%
Every carrier on SNA to SFO, 4,771 flights
These figures cover 1,011 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.3% 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
United against every carrier on SNA to SFO
United flew 1,011 of the 4,771 flights on SNA to SFO, about 21% of it. Its 68.1% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 70.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three 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 | 3,564 | 71.2% | 67 min | 1.63% | C |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,011 | 68.1% | 63 min | 0.89% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 146 | 58.3% | 95 min | 1.37% | D |
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 46 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–8am313 flights84.9%
- 8am–11am57 flights49.1%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm94 flights38.7%
- 5pm–8pm531 flights65.0%
- 8pm–5am16 flights—
Scale runs 30% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.9% of the time, against 38.7% for the afternoon window. That is 46 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 531 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on SNA to SFO through the year
Delays peak in May, when the on-time rate falls to 38.0%. March is the strongest month at 87.7%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 50 points. May was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 46.6%. 36 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 64% of the 20,000 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.
- 64%National Airspace System
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
64% 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 13,000 minutes out of 20,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 19,980 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.89%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.3% 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 83.9% on time across 1,011 flights, 16 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 16 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,011 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking United on SNA to SFO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,011 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 68.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,001 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SNA to SFO, every carrier
- United on SFO to SNA, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on SNA to SFO71.2%
- Frontier Airlines on SNA to SFO58.3%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.