FlyerIntel Research

Where Flights Do Not Land

A diversion is not a delay. It is arriving at a different airport altogether, and some places and some routes are far more prone to it than travellers imagine.

Published August 31, 2026 · Source period July 2023 – June 2026

Summary

Diversions are rare everywhere — 42,830 arrivals across the covered airports over three years — but they are not evenly rare. SBA (Santa Barbara) diverts 0.634% of its arrivals against SJC (San Jose) at 0.045%, a 14.2-fold difference between two airports in the same country. On one route the rate reaches 2.57% — about one flight in 39 — and the reasons are structural rather than bad luck.

Key findings

SBA has the highest arrival diversion rate of any covered airport at 0.634%; SJC the lowest at 0.045%.
LAS to HNL diverts 2.57% of its flights — roughly one in 39, against a national rate an order of magnitude lower.
July is the worst month at 0.427% and November the quietest at 0.124%.
The airports that divert least are clustered in benign, uncongested climates; the ones that divert most are either weather-exposed, capacity-constrained, or both.

What a diversion actually is

A delayed flight arrives late where you meant to go. A diverted flight lands somewhere else — and then you wait, on the aircraft or in a terminal with no gate assigned to you, while the airline works out whether it can refuel and continue, whether the crew has legal hours left, and whether there is a slot to come back into. It is the failure mode that most reliably destroys a day, and it is invisible in an on-time statistic: a diverted flight has no arrival time at its scheduled destination, so it is excluded from on-time rates rather than counted as late.

Arrival diversion rate by airport

Airport	City	Diverted	Arrivals	Rate
SBA	Santa Barbara	151	23,809	0.634%
LGA	New York	2,115	445,308	0.475%
DFW	Dallas–Fort Worth	4,211	933,019	0.451%
DCA	Washington	1,874	423,011	0.443%
MDW	Chicago	971	233,209	0.416%
DAL	Dallas	884	217,798	0.406%
RSW	Fort Myers	415	105,433	0.394%
EWR	Newark	1,481	377,780	0.392%
MCO	Orlando	1,784	485,092	0.368%
JFK	New York	1,147	342,365	0.335%
HOU	Houston	557	167,434	0.333%
SAN	San Diego	943	288,319	0.327%
DEN	Denver	3,024	933,527	0.324%
ORD	Chicago	2,976	919,661	0.324%
MIA	Miami	1,022	331,265	0.309%
IAH	Houston	1,059	349,231	0.303%
BUR	Burbank	274	91,024	0.301%
SNA	Santa Ana	397	133,364	0.298%
FLL	Fort Lauderdale	807	271,566	0.297%
HNL	Honolulu	497	181,244	0.274%
TPA	Tampa	616	236,530	0.260%
MCI	Kansas City	341	147,922	0.231%
MSY	New Orleans	346	150,520	0.230%
SJU	San Juan	235	106,282	0.221%
ATL	Atlanta	2,109	984,097	0.214%
AUS	Austin	561	264,353	0.212%
OMA	Omaha	154	72,610	0.212%
BNA	Nashville	653	309,534	0.211%
BWI	Baltimore	609	290,691	0.210%
IAD	Washington	317	164,643	0.193%
MKE	Milwaukee	160	85,113	0.188%
BOS	Boston	797	427,609	0.186%
ABE	Allentown	21	11,371	0.185%
PHL	Philadelphia	536	295,132	0.182%
STL	St. Louis	350	192,931	0.181%
SAT	San Antonio	219	123,773	0.177%
SFO	San Francisco	732	422,186	0.173%
ANC	Anchorage	97	56,272	0.172%
CLT	Charlotte	1,027	602,693	0.170%
CHS	Charleston	128	75,224	0.170%
MYR	Myrtle Beach	74	44,148	0.168%
CLE	Cleveland	199	123,356	0.161%
JAX	Jacksonville	141	87,588	0.161%
ILM	Wilmington	37	23,003	0.161%
SEA	Seattle	781	493,971	0.158%
RDU	Raleigh–Durham	259	175,144	0.148%
BUF	Buffalo	92	63,644	0.145%
CMH	Columbus	185	130,020	0.142%
MEM	Memphis	100	70,524	0.142%
MSP	Minneapolis	476	358,825	0.133%
PHX	Phoenix	768	582,404	0.132%
DTW	Detroit	475	378,166	0.126%
IND	Indianapolis	174	142,732	0.122%
ABQ	Albuquerque	86	73,793	0.117%
LAS	Las Vegas	645	555,324	0.116%
LAX	Los Angeles	664	577,720	0.115%
TUS	Tucson	63	57,903	0.109%
PIT	Pittsburgh	135	128,995	0.105%
SLC	Salt Lake City	348	344,744	0.101%
PDX	Portland	182	181,323	0.100%
ONT	Ontario	77	77,572	0.099%
SMF	Sacramento	145	167,406	0.087%
OAK	Oakland	63	114,529	0.055%
SJC	San Jose	64	142,947	0.045%

Arrivals that ended somewhere other than this airport, as a share of arrivals scheduled into it.

The routes most likely to end somewhere else

Route	From	To	Diverted	Flights	Rate
LAS → HNL	Las Vegas	Honolulu	142	5,516	2.57%
PBI → HPN	West Palm Beach	White Plains	62	5,246	1.18%
DEN → ASE	Denver	Aspen	95	8,185	1.16%
SNA → ORD	Santa Ana	Chicago	69	6,534	1.06%
DEN → LGA	Denver	New York	147	14,213	1.03%
ORD → SNA	Chicago	Santa Ana	59	6,534	0.90%
DFW → LGA	Dallas–Fort Worth	New York	177	19,603	0.90%
IAH → LGA	Houston	New York	105	12,046	0.87%
LAS → JFK	Las Vegas	New York	92	10,592	0.87%
JFK → DFW	New York	Dallas–Fort Worth	49	5,826	0.84%
LAS → BOS	Las Vegas	Boston	42	5,075	0.83%
SAN → JFK	San Diego	New York	58	7,254	0.80%
BOS → DFW	Boston	Dallas–Fort Worth	91	11,683	0.78%
LAS → EWR	Las Vegas	Newark	72	9,245	0.78%
SMF → DFW	Sacramento	Dallas–Fort Worth	40	5,165	0.77%
MIA → LGA	Miami	New York	134	17,469	0.77%
SEA → HNL	Seattle	Honolulu	66	8,839	0.75%
SLC → MCO	Salt Lake City	Orlando	38	5,190	0.73%
LGA → DEN	New York	Denver	104	14,214	0.73%
MCI → LGA	Kansas City	New York	41	5,675	0.72%

Routes with at least 5,000 flights over the period.

Why these routes and not others

The routes at the top of that table have something in common that has little to do with the airlines flying them. An overwater sector has no convenient alternate to hold for, so a decision has to be made early and with fuel in hand. A mountain airport with terrain approaches and a single usable runway direction closes to arrivals in conditions that would barely register elsewhere. A short runway in a crowded metropolitan area leaves no margin when the wind turns. None of that is a judgement about the operator; it is a property of the destination, and it is why the same carrier can look very different on two routes.

Diversion rate by month

January0.2%

February0.2%

March0.3%

April0.2%

May0.3%

June0.4%

July0.4%

August0.3%

September0.2%

October0.1%

November0.1%

December0.2%

How much this should change what you do

Honestly, not much, and it would be wrong to imply otherwise. Even the worst airport here delivers well over ninety-nine arrivals in a hundred to the airport on the ticket, and no figure on this page predicts an individual flight. What it is useful for is the margin around a journey that cannot absorb the failure: a same-day connection onto an international departure, a cruise sailing, a wedding. If the destination or the route sits high on these tables and the day has no slack in it, that is worth an earlier flight or a night in hand — not out of fear, but because the cost of being wrong is asymmetric.

Methodology

Calculated by FlyerIntel from 21,076,354 individual flight records in the US Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance dataset, covering July 2023 through June 2026. Following BTS methodology, a flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after its scheduled arrival time. Cancelled and diverted flights have no arrival time and are excluded from on-time rates rather than counted as late; cancellation rates are reported separately. Full definitions are published at /methodology/. A flight is counted as diverted where the DOT records it as such, meaning it did not arrive at its scheduled destination. Airport rates are computed over arrivals scheduled into that airport, and an airport appears only where it recorded at least 5,000 arrivals; routes appear only above 5,000 flights, because a diversion is rare enough that a thin route produces a meaningless rate from one or two events. Every figure here is an arrivals measure — flights scheduled into a place that did not get there. The monthly series is computed from the flight records for the same reason, because the seasonal aggregate counts departures that diverted en route, which is a different event.

Limitations

The source dataset covers scheduled domestic flights operated by carriers above the DOT reporting threshold; smaller carriers and international flights are not included. Flights sold under a mainline brand but flown by a regional carrier are attributed to the operating carrier, which is how the DOT records them. Past performance describes what has happened and is not a prediction about any individual flight. The dataset records that a flight diverted, not why. Weather, a medical emergency, a mechanical problem and an airport closure are indistinguishable here, and the explanations offered above are inferences from the geography and operating environment of the airports concerned rather than measurements. Where a diverted flight eventually landed is not recorded either, so none of this describes how long a diversion costs you.

Sources

FlyerIntel analysis — FlyerIntel · source
Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance — US Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics · source

Full FlyerIntel methodology · Report a problem with this analysis