Route profile
OAK→BUR
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Oakland to Burbank, 325 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 85% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 9,509 flights. How this is calculated
OAK → BUR arrives on time 84.4% of the time; the return trip, BUR → OAK, arrives on time 86.6% of the time, a 2.2-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
OAK → BUR spends 14.4 minutes on the ground on a 325-mile trip: 11.0 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at OAK and 3.4 minutes from touchdown to gate at BUR.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
Every airline on this route performs about the same, a narrower carrier gap than 96% of 2,692 comparable routes.
Southwest Airlines (84.4% on time) and Spirit Airlines (83.6%) are close together here.
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 2,692 in the comparison.
What sets this route apart
Where OAK to BUR differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
OAK to BUR is at its best against routes of similar length for flights scheduled at 2 PM: 86.2% arrive on time, 8.7 points ahead of the 77.5% those routes manage at that hour. Against all other routes the gap is 11.6 points.
OAK to BUR holds up on Wednesdays better than routes of similar length do: 89.1% on time to their 82.8%, a 6.3 points lead. Against all other routes the gap is 8.3 points.
July is kinder to OAK to BUR than to routes of similar length: 81.3% on time against 73.2%, 8.1 points better. Against all other routes the gap is 11.6 points.
Southwest Airlines does better on OAK to BUR than on its routes of similar length: 84.4% on time here, 81.0% there, 3.4 points apart. Against all other routes the gap is 7 points.
OAK to BUR against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 2 PM departures | 86.2% | routes of similar length | 77.5% | +8.7 pts | 426 here, 58,975 there |
| Weekday: Wednesday | 89.1% | routes of similar length | 82.8% | +6.3 pts | 1,295 here, 155,781 there |
| Month: July | 81.3% | routes of similar length | 73.2% | +8.1 pts | 1,033 here, 121,532 there |
| Airline: Southwest Airlines | 84.4% | routes of similar length | 81.0% | +3.4 pts | 8,990 here, 365,730 there |
Each comparison pools the flights of other routes, with this route’s own left out. Similar length means within 15% of this route’s 325 miles, with at least 5 such routes. A bucket is set against the most comparable group that has enough flights: similar length, then the same origin (at least 3 routes), then all other routes. Hours, weekdays and months appear only where both sides have 120 completed flights, and airlines where both have 600. The gap must be at least 2 points and 2 standard errors, and only the largest gap each way is kept per measure. These are differences in the flights counted, not causes.
Why OAK → BUR flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
OAK → BUR cancelled 133 of 9,509 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 71. The reason filed most often was the airline, 62.4% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 115 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 133 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
83 cancellations, 62.4% of the total.
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
44 cancellations, 33.1% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
6 cancellations, 4.5% of the total.
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. With only one or two carriers on the route, the split mostly reflects how they file. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
133 coded cancellations were recorded on OAK → BUR; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
28 min late
against a median of 8 min early
Percentiles over 9,509 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at BUR after arriving from OAK.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 29% | High risk |
| 45 min | 15% | High risk |
| 60 min | 9.3% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 4.4% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 2.2% | 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 1.40% of the time and diverts 0.21% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 9,356 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 28 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 9,509 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
OAK → BUR flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 93.9% of the time, against 73.6% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 20.3 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 95.5% on time from 727 flights
- 7 AM: 93.4% on time from 756 flights
- 8 AM: 92.5% on time from 572 flights
- 9 AM: 91.0% on time from 804 flights
- 10 AM: 92.5% on time from 468 flights
- 11 AM: 88.2% on time from 700 flights
- 12 PM: 85.3% on time from 532 flights
- 1 PM: 86.9% on time from 769 flights
- 2 PM: 86.2% on time from 432 flights
- 3 PM: 79.8% on time from 571 flights
- 4 PM: 80.2% on time from 545 flights
- 5 PM: 72.1% on time from 613 flights
- 6 PM: 78.2% on time from 724 flights
- 7 PM: 73.7% on time from 693 flights
- 8 PM: 68.1% on time from 602 flights
- 9 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why OAK → BUR runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for OAK → BUR. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on OAK → BUR, at 56.0%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 93.9% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 73.6%.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 9,134 | 84.4% | 1.39% | -8 min | 4.4% |
| Spirit Airlines | 374 | 83.6% | 1.60% | -9 min | 6.0% |
Southwest Airlines flew 96.1% of the 9,508 flights listed.
Carriers on this route performed within a couple of percentage points of each other.
Other ways to fly San Francisco to Los Angeles
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
| Route | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SFO→LAX San Francisco to Los Angeles | 34,804 | 77.1% | 0.70% | -5 min | 67 |
| SJC→LAX San Jose to Los Angeles | 15,614 | 86.7% | 0.37% | -10 min | 88 |
| SFO→SNA San Francisco to Santa Ana | 13,715 | 80.2% | 1.13% | -6 min | 72 |
| OAK→BUR this route Oakland to Burbank | 9,509 | 84.4% | 1.40% | -8 min | 79 |
SJC → LAX is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 86.7% on time, against 77.1% for SFO → LAX.
Flying to BUR from the San Francisco area? Compare OAK, SFO, SJC for BUR, with the same test for what counts as a real difference.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 9.7 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 89.8%
- Feb: 86.7%
- Mar: 86.7%
- Apr: 87.7%
- May: 84.7%
- Jun: 76.9%
- Jul: 81.3%
- Aug: 83.0%
- Sep: 86.2%
- Oct: 82.4%
- Nov: 86.4%
- Dec: 82.5%
June is historically the weakest month and January the strongest, a spread of 12.9 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 81.6% from 289 flights
- August 2023: 79.2% from 290 flights
- September 2023: 87.5% from 285 flights
- October 2023: 82.6% from 306 flights
- November 2023: 93.8% from 264 flights
- December 2023: 82.3% from 268 flights
- January 2024: 85.8% from 264 flights
- February 2024: 85.5% from 237 flights
- March 2024: 88.5% from 239 flights
- April 2024: 89.9% from 250 flights
- May 2024: 82.6% from 262 flights
- June 2024: 77.9% from 273 flights
- July 2024: 84.7% from 279 flights
- August 2024: 85.1% from 284 flights
- September 2024: 83.2% from 296 flights
- October 2024: 84.9% from 302 flights
- November 2024: 87.8% from 290 flights
- December 2024: 85.8% from 267 flights
- January 2025: 92.6% from 263 flights
- February 2025: 89.9% from 242 flights
- March 2025: 90.1% from 279 flights
- April 2025: 88.6% from 266 flights
- May 2025: 87.1% from 266 flights
- June 2025: 79.5% from 255 flights
- July 2025: 79.2% from 258 flights
- August 2025: 84.7% from 257 flights
- September 2025: 88.1% from 254 flights
- October 2025: 79.2% from 256 flights
- November 2025: 76.4% from 240 flights
- December 2025: 79.0% from 232 flights
- January 2026: 91.4% from 209 flights
- February 2026: 84.3% from 201 flights
- March 2026: 80.6% from 219 flights
- April 2026: 83.8% from 213 flights
- May 2026: 84.3% from 219 flights
- June 2026: 72.6% from 213 flights
- July 2026: 79.1% from 222 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 82.0% against 86.1% in the 12 months before — declining by 4.1 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 9,509 OAK → BUR 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
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed