Carrier performance at one airport

AS→SAN

Alaska Airlines at San Diego International

Departures: 13,373
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Routes: 25
Rank here: #4 of 8

Alaska Airlines at San Diego lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 13,373 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 9,581 at 86.3% on time.

Measured against the airport rather than the country, Alaska Airlines runs 3 points ahead of the 76.3% weighted average across all carriers at SAN. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.

On time

79.0%

13,088 completed departures

Avg delay

57 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

1.35%

At SAN, this carrier only

Rank here

Of 8 carriers clearing the floor at SAN

These figures cover 13,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Against the competition

Every carrier at SAN, ranked

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 86.3% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 70.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 39,067 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance of all carriers departing SAN
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	9,581	86.3%	79 min	1.17%	A
American Airlines	9,387	80.6%	103 min	1.64%	B
United Airlines	10,655	79.7%	69 min	0.71%	B+
Alaska Airlines (this page)	13,373	79.0%	57 min	1.35%	B
JetBlue Airways	1,643	78.8%	97 min	3.16%	B−
SkyWest Airlines	14,921	77.8%	58 min	2.01%	B
Frontier Airlines	2,105	71.5%	81 min	1.95%	C
Southwest Airlines	39,067	70.6%	51 min	0.92%	C+

JetBlue Airways cancels 3.2% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.

Route by route

Where Alaska Airlines flies from SAN

Alaska Airlines operates 25 routes out of SAN with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.

Alaska Airlines routes from SAN
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SAN to SEA · Seattle	2,727	79.5%	60 min	1.72%	B
SAN to PDX · Portland	1,591	85.5%	55 min	1.01%	A
SAN to ORD · Chicago	862	69.7%	61 min	2.55%	C
SAN to HNL · Honolulu	729	67.6%	64 min	2.19%	C
SAN to OGG · Kahului	727	85.6%	49 min	0.83%	A+
SAN to JFK · New York	647	83.4%	57 min	1.70%	B
SAN to MCO · Orlando	628	78.3%	48 min	0.48%	B+
SAN to DEN · Denver	557	84.1%	57 min	0.90%	B+
SAN to BOS · Boston	509	78.3%	72 min	1.38%	B
SAN to DCA · Washingtonthin sample	364	70.0%	62 min	1.10%	C
SAN to KOA · Kailua-Konathin sample	364	83.8%	41 min	0.27%	B+
SAN to TPA · Tampathin sample	364	81.2%	65 min	0.55%	B+
SAN to GEG · Spokanethin sample	364	83.3%	43 min	1.10%	B
SAN to IAD · Washingtonthin sample	361	86.3%	57 min	0.83%	A+
SAN to SFO · San Franciscothin sample	331	53.1%	52 min	1.51%	F
SAN to EWR · Newarkthin sample	328	84.0%	79 min	2.74%	B
SAN to LIH · Lihuethin sample	294	81.6%	49 min	0.68%	B+
SAN to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worththin sample	264	77.5%	43 min	0.76%	B+
SAN to BOI · Boisethin sample	253	81.2%	45 min	1.19%	B
SAN to SMF · Sacramentothin sample	247	73.4%	43 min	2.43%	C
SAN to PHX · Phoenixthin sample	181	78.7%	46 min	1.66%	B
SAN to ATL · Atlantathin sample	180	81.7%	53 min	0.00%	B+
SAN to FLL · Fort Lauderdalethin sample	172	68.2%	60 min	0.58%	C+
SAN to RDU · Raleighthin sample	132	84.1%	40 min	0.00%	B+
SAN to SJC · San Josethin sample	109	80.6%	32 min	0.92%	B+

Flight by flight

Alaska Airlines flight numbers from SAN

13 Alaska Airlines flight numbers leaving SAN flew their main route often enough to have a record of their own. Grouped by destination.

Departure window

Best time of day for this operation

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 14 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am1,451 flights89.7%
8am–11am3,503 flights80.4%
11am–2pm2,295 flights76.1%
2pm–5pm1,852 flights76.6%
5pm–8pm1,944 flights76.1%
8pm–5am2,328 flights77.7%

Scale runs 70% to 95%.

The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 76.1% on time against 89.7% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 3,503 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Seasonal pattern

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, August worst

August is the worst month at 72.3% on time, 15 points below April, the best at 86.8%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. August was the busiest month here, with 1,319 flights.

Delay causes

What holds this operation up

Late-arriving aircraft
39%
National Airspace System
30%
Carrier
25%
Extreme weather
6%
Security
0%

39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 155,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 155,057 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.35% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.78%.

5.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

13,373 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 86.8% on time and August 72.3%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 13,088 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

Alaska Airlines at SAN

How often is Alaska Airlines at SAN delayed?

About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.0% of the 13,373 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on Alaska Airlines at SAN?

Delta Air Lines leads at 86.3% on time across 9,581 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 70.6%, a gap of 16 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.

What time of day has the fewest delays on Alaska Airlines at SAN?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 76.1%, 14 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.

How bad are August delays on Alaska Airlines at SAN?

August is the weakest month at 72.3% on time, compared with 86.8% in April. Across the year that is 15 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures