Route reliability record
AUS→SAN
Austin to San Diego
- Flights
- 2,605
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,164 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 2,605 AUS to SAN flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,070 at 79.4% on time.
Best time to fly AUS to SAN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.4% of the time and Saturday flights 84.3%, against 72.9% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,563 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.23%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
79.4% on time across 1,070 flights
These figures cover 2,605 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 2 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on AUS to SAN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 79.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 67.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,445 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 90 | 80.9% | 68 min | 1.11% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,070 | 79.4% | 59 min | 1.96% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,445 | 67.7% | 51 min | 0.69% | C+ |
SkyWest leads Southwest by 12 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on AUS to SAN
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Austin to San Diego
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. AUS → SANAustin to San Diego | SkyWest Airlines | 77.8% | 79.4% | 1.96% | 11am–2pm, Tue | OO 3293 06:00 |
| 2. AUS → SANAustin to San Diego | Southwest Airlines | 67.2% | 67.7% | 0.69% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 40 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am658 flights92.4%
- 8am–11am144 flights83.1%
- 11am–2pm365 flights74.0%
- 2pm–5pm619 flights71.5%
- 5pm–8pm269 flights52.4%
- 8pm–5am550 flights57.6%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 52.4% on time, against 92.4% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 658 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter AUS to SAN by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On AUS to SAN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 52.4%, a wide gap of 40.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.4%
- 8–11am83.1%
- 11am–2pm74.0%
- 2–5pm71.5%
- 5–8pm52.4%
- 8pm–5am57.6%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
August is the worst month at 60.1% on time, 24 points below January, the best at 84.0%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 254 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 63.0%, a spread of 21 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 38,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 38,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 to one. The split is drawn from 37,544 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 92.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.23% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.38%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.5% 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 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,164 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 70.1% on time across 2,617 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,605 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SAN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 84.0% on time and August 60.1%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,563 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
AUS to SAN questions
How often is AUS to SAN delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.1% of the 2,605 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on AUS to SAN?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 79.4% on time across 1,070 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 67.7%, a gap of 12 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 AUS to SAN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 52.4%, 40 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 AUS to SAN?
August is the weakest month at 60.1% on time, compared with 84.0% in January. Across the year that is 24 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- SAN to AUS — the return legseparate record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on AUS to SAN79.4%
- Southwest Airlines on AUS to SAN67.7%
- AUS to DEN, a related route78.9%
- SFO to SAN, a related route62.2%
- AUS to DFW, a related route74.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record80.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record79.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record67.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. AUS to SAN and SAN to AUS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.