Route reliability record
SNA→SJC
Santa Ana to San Jose
- Flights
- 2,677
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 342 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 2,677 SNA to SJC flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly SNA to SJC: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 98.6% of the time and Saturday flights 93.7%, against 86.1% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 88 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,657 completed flights
Avg delay
46 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.75%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
86.1% on time across 2,677 flights
These figures cover 2,677 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 SJC
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 | 2,677 | 86.1% | 46 min | 0.75% | A+ |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Santa Ana to San Jose
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. LAX → MRYLos Angeles to Monterey | SkyWest Airlines | 89.7% | 90.3% | 0.70% | 2pm–5pm, Tue | — |
| 3. LGB → OAKLong Beach to Oakland | Southwest Airlines | 88.1% | 88.5% | 0.45% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. ONT → SJCOntario to San Jose | Southwest Airlines | 85.8% | 85.9% | 0.08% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. LGB → SJCLong Beach to San Jose | Southwest Airlines | 85.8% | 86.0% | 0.24% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am295 flights98.6%
- 8am–11am563 flights96.8%
- 11am–2pm465 flights84.0%
- 2pm–5pm541 flights85.8%
- 5pm–8pm586 flights74.8%
- 8pm–5am227 flights77.4%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 98.6% of the time, against 74.8% for the evening window. That is 24 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 586 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SNA to SJC 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 SJC, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 98.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 74.8%, a wide gap of 23.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am98.6%
- 8–11am96.8%
- 11am–2pm84.0%
- 2–5pm85.8%
- 5–8pm74.8%
- 8pm–5am77.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 78.2% on time, 17 points below January, the best at 94.8%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 236 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 93.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.9%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 76% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 76%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 3%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
76% 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 76 to one. The split is drawn from 17,003 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 98.6% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.75%, 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 3.3% 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 342 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 86.3% on time across 2,741 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 2,677 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 SJC 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. January runs 94.8% on time and June 78.2%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,657 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SNA to SJC questions
How often is SNA to SJC delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.9% of the 2,677 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is SNA to SJC compared with the rest of the country?
86.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SNA to SJC?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 98.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.8%, 24 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 SJC?
June is the weakest month at 78.2% on time, compared with 94.8% in January. Across the year that is 17 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
- SJC to SNA — the return legseparate record
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International (SJC) delay statistics
- SNA to SFO, a related route65.5%
- SAN to SJC, a related route74.5%
- SNA to PHX, a related route82.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record86.1%
- 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 SJC and SJC 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.