Carrier route record
WNFAT→SAN
Southwest Airlines · Fresno to San Diego
- Flights
- 627
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 34%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on FAT to SAN 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 627 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on FAT to SAN 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 624 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.32%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
73.2%
Every carrier on FAT to SAN, 1,818 flights
These figures cover 627 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on FAT to SAN
Southwest flew 627 of the 1,818 flights on FAT to SAN, about 34% of it. Its 72.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 73.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 73.3% to Southwest at 72.9%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,191 | 73.3% | 53 min | 1.93% | C |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 627 | 72.9% | 54 min | 0.32% | C+ |
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.
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 59 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am265 flights92.1%
- 8am–11am65 flights70.3%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm158 flights76.3%
- 5pm–8pm138 flights33.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 25% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 33.3% on time, against 92.1% 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 265 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on FAT to SAN through the year
July is the worst month at 58.6% on time, 32 points below November, the best at 91.1%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 60 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 67.7%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on FAT to SAN runs when it is late
The 169 late arrivals split 58 under half an hour, 59 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 52 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early112 flights17.9%
- Within 15 min343 flights55.0%
- 15–29 min late58 flights9.3%
- 30–59 min late59 flights9.5%
- 1–2 hours late37 flights5.9%
- 2+ hours late15 flights2.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 624 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
21 of 152 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. In the other direction, 38 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at SAN.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on FAT to SAN
The latest arrival of the period was on 13 July 2026, 4 hours 33 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The five worst days are spread across July, June, March and January, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 13 July 2026 | 4 hours 33 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 19 June 2026 | 4 hours 16 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 March 2026 | 3 hours 52 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 16 January 2026 | 3 hours 37 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 26 March 2026 | 3 hours 19 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 46% of the 9,196 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%National Airspace System
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,196 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. The split is drawn from 9,196 reported delay minutes.
46% 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 4,211 minutes out of 9,196, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.32%, 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 stage length
What a delay here costs
8.3% 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 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 79.2% on time across 627 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 627 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 Southwest on FAT to SAN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 627 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 72.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 624 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FAT to SAN, every carrier
- Southwest on SAN to FAT, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on FAT to SAN73.3%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.