Route reliability record
SNA→STS
Santa Ana to Santa Rosa
- Flights
- 745
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 433 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 745 SNA to STS flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly SNA to STS: a 5pm–8pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 81.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.9%, against 80.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
80.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 737 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.54%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
80.5% on time across 745 flights
These figures cover 745 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 STS
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 745 | 80.5% | 63 min | 0.54% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on SNA to STS
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Santa Ana to Santa Rosa
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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LAX → STSLos Angeles to Santa Rosa | SkyWest Airlines | 87.1% | 89.3% | 2.47% | 5pm–8pm, Wed (route) | — |
| 2. BUR → STSBurbank to Santa Rosa | SkyWest Airlines | 86.0% | 88.2% | 2.45% | 2pm–5pm, Sat | — |
| 3. SNA → STSSanta Ana to Santa Rosa | SkyWest Airlines | 80.1% | 80.5% | 0.54% | 5pm–8pm, Wed | OO 3467 11:48 |
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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 745 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm375 flights81.0%
- 2pm–5pm134 flights76.5%
- 5pm–8pm236 flights81.9%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 81.9% on time. The full set of windows spans 5 points.
Explore
Filter SNA to STS 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 STS, the best departure window is 5pm–8pm at 81.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 76.5%, a real gap of 5.4 points. All US flights leaving 5pm–8pm ran 68.0%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm81.0%
- 2–5pm76.5%
- 5–8pm81.9%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
August is the worst month at 74.2% on time, 15 points below January, the best at 89.5%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 70.9%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 9,089 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,089 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 9,089 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.54%, 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
7.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 433 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 5pm–8pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 80.4% on time across 745 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 745 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in STS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 745 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 80.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 737 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SNA to STS questions
How often is SNA to STS delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.5% of the 745 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is SNA to STS compared with the rest of the country?
80.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SNA to STS?
The 5pm–8pm departure window is the strongest at 81.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 76.5%, 5 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 August delays on SNA to STS?
August is the weakest month at 74.2% on time, compared with 89.5% in January. Across the year that is 15 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
- STS to SNA — the return legseparate record
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- SNA to SFO, a related route65.5%
- SAN to STS, a related route77.5%
- SNA to PHX, a related route82.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. SNA to STS and STS 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.