DEN → SNA Flight Reliability

Right now

Origin · DENNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 07:53 UTC

Denver airport profile →

Destination · SNANo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 07:53 UTC

Santa Ana airport profile →

Route reliability

July 2023 – July 2026

Route Reliability Score

77/ 100Strong

Better than 82% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)

Calculated from 11,373 flights. How this is calculated

On-time arrivals

79.9%

9,010 of 11,274

Cancellation rate

0.56%

64 cancelled

Median arrival delay

-5 min

Average 2.6 min

Severe delays

4.6%

60+ minutes late

Delay when late

47 min

Average, when 15+ min late

Flights analyzed

11,373

3 carriers

DEN → SNA arrives on time 79.9% of the time; the return trip, SNA → DEN, arrives on time 83.3% of the time, a 3.4-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.

DEN → SNA spends 23.0 minutes on the ground on an 846-mile trip: 17.3 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DEN and 5.7 minutes from touchdown to gate at SNA.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026

What stands out

This route has stayed remarkably steady year over year, a smaller swing than 93% of 5,368 comparable routes.

80.9% on time over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), against 80.5% in the 12 months before (2024-08 to 2025-07), virtually unchanged.

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 5,368 in the comparison.

Why DEN → SNA flights are cancelled

July 2023 – July 2026

DEN → SNA cancelled 64 of 11,373 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 178. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 51.6% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 345 scheduled flights.

Share of cancellations

Weather51.6%

Airline31.3%

Air traffic17.2%

Security0.0%

Of 64 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.

What each reason means

Extreme weather1 in 345

Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.

33 cancellations, 51.6% of the total.

The airline1 in 569

Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.

20 cancellations, 31.3% of the total.

The air traffic system1 in 1,034

Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.

11 cancellations, 17.2% of the total.

Security—

A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.

0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.

Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.

64 coded cancellations were recorded on DEN → SNA; the section appears from 50.

When it goes wrong

July 2023 – July 2026

One arrival in ten is worse than

34 min late

against a median of 5 min early

Arrived an hour or more late4.6%

Typical delay when late47 min

Cancelled0.56%

Landed somewhere else0.31%

Percentiles over 11,373 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.

Will your connection be tight enough?

Layovers at SNA after arriving from DEN.

Connection buffer and chance of missing by layover length, DEN → SNA arrivals
Connection time	Chance of missing	Reads as
30 min	37%	Likely to miss
45 min	19%	High risk
60 min	11%	Some risk
90 min	4.5%	Low risk
120 min	2.0%	Low risk

This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 0.56% of the time and diverts 0.31% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.

Chance of missing is the share of 11,274 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.

The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 34 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 11,373 operations.

Any other layover length: connection checker.

Best time to fly

DEN → SNA flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 90.3% of the time, against 71.9% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 18.4 percentage points.

By day and hour

On-time arrival rate for each weekday and scheduled departure hour, in local time at the departure airport (DEN).

Hour of departure matters more than day of the week: hourly averages sit a typical 7.7 points from the route-wide rate, weekday averages 2.2 points.

On-time arrival rate for DEN to SNA by weekday and scheduled departure hour, local time. Each button reads out one slot.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
7 AM–8 AM
8 AM–9 AM
9 AM–10 AM
10 AM–11 AM
11 AM–12 PM
12 PM–1 PM
1 PM–2 PM
2 PM–3 PM
3 PM–4 PM
4 PM–5 PM
5 PM–6 PM
6 PM–7 PM
7 PM–8 PM
8 PM–9 PM

On-time rate, % · stronger color, fewer on time

65–69
70–74
75–79
80–84
85–89
90–94
95–99

Fewer than 120 flights, not scored

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · On time is arrival within 15 minutes of schedule. Cells round to whole percentages; the table shows one decimal.

No slot is named best or worst: too few reach 500 flights. Departures before 7 AM (98 flights) are not drawn: no slot in those hours has enough flights to score.

View as tableHide table

On-time arrival rate (%) with flights beneath, by scheduled departure hour and weekday for DEN to SNA. A dash means fewer than 120 flights, which are not scored.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
7 AM–8 AM	90.2% on time196 flights	94.8% on time156 flights	89.0% on time154 flights	87.5% on time195 flights	88.3% on time198 flights	88.7% on time142 flights	90.4% on time219 flights
8 AM–9 AM	91.3% on time129 flights	93.5% on time124 flights	94.3% on time123 flights	85.9% on time130 flights	89.0% on time136 flights	93 flights, too few to score	94.1% on time120 flights
9 AM–10 AM	84.4% on time129 flights	72 flights, too few to score	78 flights, too few to score	87.2% on time126 flights	78.0% on time127 flights	87.0% on time124 flights	80.2% on time132 flights
10 AM–11 AM	52 flights, too few to score	36 flights, too few to score	39 flights, too few to score	41 flights, too few to score	51 flights, too few to score	43 flights, too few to score	44 flights, too few to score
11 AM–12 PM	85.5% on time215 flights	87.3% on time239 flights	86.4% on time236 flights	79.0% on time224 flights	81.8% on time215 flights	84.7% on time185 flights	81.2% on time207 flights
12 PM–1 PM	41 flights, too few to score	49 flights, too few to score	50 flights, too few to score	38 flights, too few to score	32 flights, too few to score	41 flights, too few to score	45 flights, too few to score
1 PM–2 PM	81.5% on time158 flights	84.9% on time166 flights	86.8% on time129 flights	74.7% on time162 flights	82.7% on time162 flights	82.1% on time135 flights	77.2% on time139 flights
2 PM–3 PM	59 flights, too few to score	29 flights, too few to score	33 flights, too few to score	56 flights, too few to score	58 flights, too few to score	55 flights, too few to score	46 flights, too few to score
3 PM–4 PM	115 flights, too few to score	112 flights, too few to score	79.2% on time144 flights	81.0% on time121 flights	116 flights, too few to score	110 flights, too few to score	76.0% on time170 flights
4 PM–5 PM	97 flights, too few to score	102 flights, too few to score	102 flights, too few to score	95 flights, too few to score	89 flights, too few to score	66 flights, too few to score	114 flights, too few to score
5 PM–6 PM	47 flights, too few to score	76 flights, too few to score	55 flights, too few to score	57 flights, too few to score	55 flights, too few to score	33 flights, too few to score	43 flights, too few to score
6 PM–7 PM	81 flights, too few to score	49 flights, too few to score	51 flights, too few to score	71 flights, too few to score	81 flights, too few to score	39 flights, too few to score	75 flights, too few to score
7 PM–8 PM	74.2% on time187 flights	76.7% on time208 flights	81.6% on time210 flights	77.1% on time185 flights	69.7% on time190 flights	73.0% on time235 flights	76.0% on time175 flights
8 PM–9 PM	74.7% on time195 flights	77.3% on time121 flights	78.0% on time142 flights	68.4% on time193 flights	70.6% on time199 flights	51 flights, too few to score	64.9% on time205 flights

By departure window

5–9 AM90.3%

9 AM–12 PM84.2%

12–3 PM79.4%

3–6 PM74.8%

6–9 PM71.9%

By departure hour

12 AM

3 AM

6 AM

9 AM

12 PM

3 PM

6 PM

9 PM

Why DEN → SNA runs late

July 2023 – July 2026

Late-arriving aircraft49.0%

the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late

The airline34.8%

crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control

Air traffic control14.4%

airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control

Weather1.6%

weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically

Security0.2%

screening or terminal security incidents

Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DEN → SNA. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.

Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on DEN → SNA, at 49.0%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 90.3% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 71.9%.

How this route holds up in bad weather

July 2023 – July 2026

The harder-hit end is the one the flight leaves from, where a cancellation keeps it from departing at all. Bad weather cancels 4.0 times the normal rate at DEN against 2.0 times at SNA. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: DEN 2.8% against 0.7%, SNA 1.9% against 1.0%. Flights that did leave DEN in bad weather arrived on time 51.5% of the time, against 78.8% in normal hours.

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026

Departures from DEN and SNA in hours of bad weather and in normal hours
Departures from	DEN	SNA
Cancelled in bad weather	2.8%	1.9%
Cancelled in normal hours	0.7%	1.0%
Arrived on time, bad weather	51.5%	83.6%
Arrived on time, normal hours	78.8%	81.3%
Departures in bad weather	92,610	7,919

United Airlines (1.5% cancelled against 3.5% for the other carriers at DEN) and Southwest Airlines (2.4% cancelled against 3.1% for the other carriers at DEN) cancelled fewer departures from DEN in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly worse.

This route’s airlines in bad weather at DEN

All departures from DEN

Cancellation rates in bad weather at DEN for the airlines that fly DEN to SNA, against the other carriers at DEN in the same months
Airline	Bad-weather departures	Cancelled	Other carriers
United Airlines	30,853	1.5%below the others	3.5%
Southwest Airlines	28,467	2.4%below the others	3.1%
Frontier Airlines	6,740	3.1%about level	2.8%

These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from DEN and SNA, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from DEN on every route.

Weather source and limits. In full: DEN (airlines), SNA, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.

Airlines on this route

Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.

Airlines on this route
Carrier	Flights	On time	Cancelled	Median delay	Severe
United Airlines	5,460	83.7%	0.46%	-8 min	4.3%
Southwest Airlines	4,907	75.0%	0.57%	-1 min	5.0%
Frontier Airlines	1,006	83.2%	1.09%	-7 min	3.9%

United Airlines flew 48.0% of the 11,373 flights listed.

United Airlines arrived on time 8.7 percentage points more often than Southwest Airlines on this route.

Other ways to fly Denver to Los Angeles

Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.

Other ways to fly Denver to Los Angeles
Route	Flights	On time	Cancelled	Median delay	Score
DEN→LAX Denver to Los Angeles	23,745	78.9%	0.69%	-6 min	70
DEN→SNA this route Denver to Santa Ana	11,373	79.9%	0.56%	-5 min	77

DEN → SNA is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 79.9% on time, against 78.9% for DEN → LAX.

Flights on this route

Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.

Flights on this route
Flight	Scheduled	Operations	On time
UA1320 United Airlines	11:35 AM	1,076	84.4%
UA2666 United Airlines	7:50 AM	1,010	91.1%
F94371 Frontier Airlines	9:42 AM	773	83.9%

UA2666 (7:50 AM) arrived on time 91.1% of the time, 7.2 points more often than F94371 (9:42 AM) at 83.9%.

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

Mon79.9%

Tue83.1%

Wed82.9%

Thu77.6%

Fri77.7%

Sat80.8%

Sun78.2%

Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Thursday the least, a gap of 5.5 percentage points.

By month

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

June is historically the weakest month and December the strongest, a spread of 16.4 percentage points.

Reliability over time

July 2023 – July 2026

24

25

26

Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 80.9% against 80.5% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.

Data and methodology

Calculated by FlyerIntel from 11,373 DEN → SNA flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.

Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem

Analysis last recomputed September 26, 2026

DEN airport SNA airport Return direction SNA → DEN

DEN→SNA

Right now

Route reliability

What stands out

Why DEN → SNA flights are cancelled

Share of cancellations

What each reason means

When it goes wrong

Will your connection be tight enough?

Best time to fly

By day and hour

By departure window

By departure hour

Why DEN → SNA runs late

How this route holds up in bad weather

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

This route’s airlines in bad weather at DEN

Airlines on this route

Other ways to fly Denver to Los Angeles

Flights on this route

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

By month

Reliability over time

Data and methodology