OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

Seattle to Santa Ana

978 miData through May 2026Source: US DOT · BTS

Flights on SEA–SNA arrive on time 84% of the time over the last 12 months.

On-time rate84%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay20 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled1.0%of scheduled flights

based on 3,870 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

By airline

How each carrier compares

Too close to call — no single carrier is clearly more on-time here.

  • Alaska Airlines
    On-time84%
    Medianon time
    p9020 min
    Cancel1.2%
    Flights2,627
  • Delta Air Lines
    On-time83%
    Medianon time
    p9035 min
    Cancel0.9%
    Flights970
  • SkyWest Airlines
    On-time82%
    Medianon time
    p9020 min
    Cancel0.0%
    Flights273

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline54%
  • Weather1%
  • Air traffic (NAS)21%
  • Late aircraft24%
  • Security0%

Most delay minutes here are attributed to Airline.

When flights don't go

Why flights were cancelled

  • Airline70%
  • Weather25%
  • Air traffic (NAS)5%
  • Security0%

Most cancellations here are attributed to Airline. Shares are among 40 cancellations with a reported cause (BTS reports causes from June 2003).

Over time

On-time trend

By season

On-time rate by month

When to fly

Best time to fly SEA → SNA

All airlines · rolling 36 months (2023-06 .. 2026-05).

Best time of day

On-time rates are fairly even by time of day on this route — ranging from 82% to 87% on time.

  • Evenings87% on time · p90 15 min · 3,697 flights
  • Mornings86% on time · p90 20 min · 3,340 flights
  • Middays82% on time · p90 25 min · 2,624 flights
  • Afternoons82% on time · p90 30 min · 2,452 flights

Best day of week

On-time rates are fairly even by day on this route — ranging from 82% to 89% on time.

  • Tuesdays89% on time · p90 15 min · 1,677 flights
  • Wednesdays87% on time · p90 15 min · 1,678 flights
  • Mondays84% on time · p90 20 min · 1,811 flights
  • Saturdays84% on time · p90 20 min · 1,539 flights
  • Thursdays83% on time · p90 25 min · 1,805 flights
  • Fridays83% on time · p90 20 min · 1,816 flights
  • Sundays82% on time · p90 25 min · 1,787 flights

Keep exploring

Related pages

Methodology

A flight is on time when it arrives within 15 minutes of schedule — the US DOT / BTS standard. Median and p90(the “1-in-10 bad day”) are read from the full arrival-delay distribution, never averaged across periods.

Figures cover a carrier’s own BTS-coded flights. Cells below ~200 flights are flagged as limited data. All numbers are pre-computed from public BTS On-Time Performance data.