Route reliability record
STS→SNA
Santa Rosa to Santa Ana
- Flights
- 746
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 433 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B+, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 746 STS to SNA flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly STS to SNA: a 5pm–8pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.9%, against 78.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
78.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 740 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.80%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
78.5% on time across 746 flights
These figures cover 746 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% 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
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 | 746 | 78.5% | 76 min | 0.80% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on STS to SNA
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.
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 14 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–8am—
- 8am–11am224 flights75.6%
- 11am–2pm171 flights77.6%
- 2pm–5pm275 flights78.4%
- 5pm–8pm76 flights89.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 89.5% on time. The full set of windows spans 14 points.
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 86.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 67.3%. 20 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 12,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 21%Extreme weather
- 14%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 12,021 reported delay minutes.
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.
Cancellations are rare at 0.80%, 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 actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.5% 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 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 78.8% on time across 746 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. 746 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. 746 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 78.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 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 21.5% of the 746 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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?
78.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of about a point 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 89.5% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 75.6%, 14 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 route76.1%
- SFO to SNA, a related route80.3%
- PHX to SNA, a related route79.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record78.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.