Route reliability record
STS→LAX
Santa Rosa to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 714
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 399 mi
- Carriers
- 2
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 8 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 714 STS to LAX flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly STS to LAX: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.9% of the time and Saturday flights 95.4%, against 85.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 84 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 694 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.80%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
85.8% on time across 687 flights
These figures cover 714 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 STS to LAX
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 | 687 | 85.8% | 68 min | 2.91% | A |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 27 | 85.2% | 22 min | 0.00% | A+ |
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 Rosa to Los Angeles
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. STS → LAXSanta Rosa to Los Angeles | SkyWest Airlines | 83.3% | 85.8% | 2.91% | 11am–2pm, Sat (route) | — |
| 2. STS → SNASanta Rosa to Santa Ana | SkyWest Airlines | 79.9% | 80.4% | 0.67% | 5pm–8pm, Wed | — |
| 3. STS → BURSanta Rosa to Burbank | SkyWest Airlines | 79.8% | 82.1% | 2.77% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am286 flights89.9%
- 8am–11am27 flights—
- 11am–2pm112 flights92.9%
- 2pm–5pm41 flights75.6%
- 5pm–8pm172 flights81.4%
- 8pm–5am76 flights76.0%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 92.9% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 75.6%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 286 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter STS to LAX 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 STS to LAX, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 92.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 75.6%, a wide gap of 17.3 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am89.9%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm92.9%
- 2–5pm75.6%
- 5–8pm81.4%
- 8pm–5am76.0%
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 14 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 September, when the on-time rate falls to 79.2%. August is the strongest month at 93.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 14 points. July was the busiest month here, with 85 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 95.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 79.7%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 6,512 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,512 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 47 to one. The split is drawn from 6,512 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,262 of the 6,512 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.80%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% 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 399 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 89.4% on time across 715 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 714 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 LAX after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.80% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 694 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
STS to LAX questions
How often is STS to LAX 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 14.3% of the 714 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is STS to LAX compared with the rest of the country?
85.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 8 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on STS to LAX?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 92.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 75.6%, 17 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 September delays on STS to LAX?
September is the weakest month at 79.2% on time, compared with 93.0% in August. Across the year that is 14 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
- LAX to STS — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- STS to SAN, a related route73.3%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- STS to SNA, a related route80.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record85.8%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record85.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. STS to LAX and LAX to STS 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.