Carrier route record

ASEWR→SAN

Alaska Airlines · Newark to San Diego

Flights: 328
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 21%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.

Alaska on EWR to SAN lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 328 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Alaska on EWR to SAN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

77.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 312 completed flights

Avg delay

73 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.96%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

79.9%

Every carrier on EWR to SAN, 1,561 flights

These figures cover 328 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

Alaska against every carrier on EWR to SAN

Alaska flew 328 of the 1,561 flights on EWR to SAN, about 21% of it. Its 77.6% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 80.5% to Alaska at 77.6%.

Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.

On-time performance by carrier on EWR to SAN
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	1,233	80.5%	64 min	1.38%	B
Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample	328	77.6%	73 min	3.96%	B−

Departure window

When Alaska runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am—
8am–11am—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm251 flights82.9%
5pm–8pm77 flights59.7%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.7% on time, against 82.9% for the 2pm–5pm 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 251 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Alaska on EWR to SAN through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights73.8%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights70.9%
Jan–Mar 202654 flights88.5%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights81.1%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 77.6% on time across 328 flights.

Alaska on EWR to SAN did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 88.5% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 70.9%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 82 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.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 91.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%. 25 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 5,095 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
34%
National Airspace System
30%
Extreme weather
21%
Carrier
14%
Security
1%

Extreme weather accounts for 21% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.4 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 5,095 reported delay minutes.

34% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 5,095 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.

Cancellations run at 3.96%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

8.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 2,425 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.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.6% on time across 328 flights, 5 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 5 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 328 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 Alaska on EWR to SAN

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.96% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 2pm–5pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 312 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures