Route reliability record
FAT→SAN
Fresno to San Diego
- Flights
- 1,818
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 314 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,818 FAT to SAN flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,191 at 73.3% on time.
Best time to fly FAT to SAN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.0% of the time and Saturday flights 81.5%, against 73.2% 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 41 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,785 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.38%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
73.3% on time across 1,191 flights
These figures cover 1,818 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 FAT to SAN
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,191 | 73.3% | 53 min | 1.93% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 627 | 72.9% | 54 min | 0.32% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 73.3%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on FAT 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 Fresno 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. FAT → SANFresno to San Diego | Southwest Airlines | 72.7% | 72.9% | 0.32% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. FAT → SANFresno to San Diego | SkyWest Airlines | 71.9% | 73.3% | 1.93% | 5am–8am, Sat | OO 3402 06:00 |
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 51 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am624 flights92.0%
- 8am–11am396 flights69.2%
- 11am–2pm65 flights67.7%
- 2pm–5pm430 flights68.2%
- 5pm–8pm248 flights41.1%
- 8pm–5am55 flights78.4%
Scale runs 35% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 41.1% on time, against 92.0% 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 624 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FAT 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 FAT to SAN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 41.1%, a wide gap of 50.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.0%
- 8–11am69.2%
- 11am–2pm67.7%
- 2–5pm68.2%
- 5–8pm41.1%
- 8pm–5am78.4%
best all US flightsScale 35% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 62.3% on time, 22 points below February, the best at 84.6%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 178 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 66.7%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 26,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%National Airspace System
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 9,124 minutes out of 26,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 25,536 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 92.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.38% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.44%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.7% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 314 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.8% on time across 1,818 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,818 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. February runs 84.6% on time and August 62.3%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,785 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FAT to SAN questions
How often is FAT 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 26.8% of the 1,818 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on FAT to SAN?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 73.3% on time across 1,191 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 72.9%, a gap of half a point. 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 FAT to SAN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 41.1%, 51 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 FAT to SAN?
August is the weakest month at 62.3% on time, compared with 84.6% in February. Across the year that is 22 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 FAT — the return legseparate record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on FAT to SAN73.3%
- Southwest Airlines on FAT to SAN72.9%
- FAT to LAS, a related route81.6%
- SFO to SAN, a related route62.2%
- FAT to PHX, a related route81.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record73.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. FAT to SAN and SAN to FAT 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.