Route reliability record
STS→SNA
Santa Rosa to Santa Ana
- 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 745 STS to SNA flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly STS to SNA: a 5pm–8pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 90.9%, against 80.4% 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
80.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 740 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.67%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
80.4% on time across 745 flights
These figures cover 745 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on STS to SNA
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 | 80.4% | 79 min | 0.67% | B+ |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Santa Rosa to Santa Ana
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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am274 flights76.0%
- 11am–2pm121 flights79.2%
- 2pm–5pm213 flights81.6%
- 5pm–8pm137 flights88.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 88.3% on time. The full set of windows spans 12 points.
Explore
Filter STS to SNA 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 SNA, the best departure window is 5pm–8pm at 88.3% on time and the worst is 8am–11am at 76.0%, a wide gap of 12.3 points. All US flights leaving 5pm–8pm ran 68.0%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am76.0%
- 11am–2pm79.2%
- 2–5pm81.6%
- 5–8pm88.3%
- 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 30 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.
December is the weak month at 61.8% on time, against 91.8% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. December was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 70.0%, a spread of 21 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 11,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 21%Extreme weather
- 11%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 21% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.4 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 11,398 reported delay minutes.
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 to one.
Cancellations are rare at 0.67%, 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
8.9% 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 a little over 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 80.5% 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 SNA 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 80.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 740 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
STS to SNA questions
How often is STS to SNA 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 19.6% of the 745 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is STS to SNA compared with the rest of the country?
80.4% 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 STS to SNA?
The 5pm–8pm departure window is the strongest at 88.3% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 76.0%, 12 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 December delays on STS to SNA?
December is the weakest month at 61.8% on time, compared with 91.8% in May. Across the year that is 30 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
- SNA to STS — the return legseparate record
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- STS to SAN, a related route73.3%
- SFO to SNA, a related route77.4%
- STS to BUR, a related route82.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.4%
- 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. STS to SNA and SNA 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.