Flight number record
AS 8
Alaska Airlines · San Francisco to Washington
- Route
- SFO → DCA
- Departs
- 09:39
- Flights
- 363
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s AS 8, check with Alaska Airlines.
AS 8 lands a B+, about a point 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 50 minutes on average. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 359 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.83%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.3%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 363 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Schedule
When AS 8 flies
AS 8 flies SFO to DCA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 09:39, used on 82 of 363 flights, with 09:40 (58 flights) and 09:45 (46 flights) next.
- Departs 09:3982 flights22.6%
- Departs 09:4058 flights16.0%
- Departs 09:4546 flights12.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 09:39 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and AS 8 runs 6 points worse at 78.3%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Against the route
AS 8 next to SFO to DCA
Every carrier on SFO to DCA combined arrived on time 78.4% of the time across 1,090 flights, so AS 8 is about level with it. Across its whole network Alaska Airlines managed 79.7%, close to this flight's figure.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AS 8thin sample | 363 | 78.3% | 51 min | 0.83% | B+ |
| All Alaska Airlines on SFO–DCAthin sample | 363 | 78.3% | 51 min | 0.83% | B+ |
| All carriers on SFO–DCA | 1,090 | 78.4% | 55 min | 0.64% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines, whole network | 309,844 | 79.7% | 52 min | 1.20% | B |
Across the year
AS 8 quarter by quarter
AS 8 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 86.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 68.9%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 73 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights80.2%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights79.3%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights78.9%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights68.9%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
By weekday, AS 8 did best on Saturday at 88.2% on time and worst on Friday at 70.6%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 18 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late AS 8 runs when it is late
AS 8 often beats the schedule: 161 of 359 completed flights, 45%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 78 late arrivals split 30 under half an hour, 29 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 19 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early161 flights44.8%
- Within 15 min120 flights33.4%
- 15–29 min late30 flights8.4%
- 30–59 min late29 flights8.1%
- 1–2 hours late14 flights3.9%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 359 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 97 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 30 still arrived on time. 11 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for AS 8
The latest arrival of the period was on 28 May 2026, 4 hours 3 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 28 May 2026 | 4 hours 3 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 December 2025 | 2 hours 53 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 January 2026 | 2 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 November 2025 | 2 hours 17 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 1 April 2026 | 2 hours 4 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why AS 8 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 3,961 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%National Airspace System
- 15%Carrier
- 1%Security
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 3,961 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 to one. The split is drawn from 3,961 delay minutes reported on AS 8.
Cancellations are rare at 0.83%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.3% 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 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,442 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
Every one of the 363 flights under AS 8 in the data flew SFO to DCA. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 363 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking AS 8
For a booking, read AS 8 as 78.3% on time with 0.83% cancelled over 363 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to DCA, every carrier and departure
- DCA to SFO, the return direction
- United Airlines 2386 on the same route69.1%
- United Airlines 1678 on the same route88.0%
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on-time record
- Every Alaska Airlines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
A flight number here means Alaska Airlines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.