Carrier route record
ASEWR→SFO
Alaska Airlines · Newark to San Francisco
- Flights
- 610
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 14%
- 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 SFO sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 610 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Alaska on EWR to SFO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 600 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.98%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
69.8%
Every carrier on EWR to SFO, 4,403 flights
These figures cover 610 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 SFO
Alaska flew 610 of the 4,403 flights on EWR to SFO, about 14% of it. Its 75.5% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 69.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 75.5% to United at 68.9%.
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines (this page) | 610 | 75.5% | 69 min | 0.98% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 3,793 | 68.9% | 92 min | 2.53% | C |
Flight by flight
Alaska flight numbers on EWR to SFO
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 24 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–8am131 flights78.5%
- 8am–11am150 flights90.6%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm7 flights—
- 5pm–8pm322 flights66.9%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.6% of the time, against 66.9% for the evening window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 322 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Alaska on EWR to SFO through the year
July is the worst month at 58.1% on time, 31 points below November, the best at 89.1%. 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 67 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 81.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.0%. 11 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 10,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 9%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
38% 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 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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. The split is drawn from 10,171 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.98% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.66%.
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 2,565 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 86.0% on time across 611 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 610 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 SFO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 610 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 75.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 600 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to SFO, every carrier
- Alaska on SFO to EWR, the return leg
- United Airlines on EWR to SFO68.9%
- Alaska Airlines network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.