OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

San Francisco to St. Louis

1,736 miData through Dec 2025Source: US DOT · BTS

Flights on SFO–STL arrive on time 72% of the time over the last 12 months.

On-time rate72%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay40 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled0.5%of scheduled flights

based on 553 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

By airline

How each carrier compares

  • Southwest Airlines
    On-time65%
    Median5 min
    p9050 min
    Cancel0.0%
    Flights245
  • United Airlinesbest
    On-time77%
    Medianon time
    p9030 min
    Cancel1.0%
    Flights308

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline27%
  • Weather0%
  • Air traffic (NAS)12%
  • Late aircraft61%
  • Security0%

Most delay minutes here are attributed to Late aircraft.

Over time

On-time trend

By season

On-time rate by month

When to fly

Best time to fly SFO → STL

All airlines · rolling 36 months (2023-01 .. 2025-12).

Best time of day

On-time rates are fairly even by time of day on this route — ranging from 68% to 88% on time.

  • Mornings88% on time · p90 15 min · 201 flights
  • Evenings81% on time · p90 55 min · 84 flights · limited
  • Middays68% on time · p90 50 min · 914 flights

Best day of week

On-time rates are fairly even by day on this route — ranging from 64% to 80% on time.

  • Saturdays80% on time · p90 30 min · 159 flights · limited
  • Tuesdays78% on time · p90 35 min · 164 flights · limited
  • Sundays73% on time · p90 50 min · 192 flights · limited
  • Wednesdays71% on time · p90 45 min · 184 flights · limited
  • Thursdays69% on time · p90 60 min · 192 flights · limited
  • Mondays65% on time · p90 55 min · 194 flights · limited
  • Fridays64% on time · p90 55 min · 191 flights · limited
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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.