Route reliability record
JFK→SAN
New York to San Diego
- Flights
- 2,417
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,446 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,417 JFK to SAN flights, of which JetBlue Airways flew 724 at 83.2% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to SAN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.2%, against 78.0% for the route overall.
JetBlue Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 83.2% on time across 724 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,331 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.85%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
JetBlue
83.2% on time across 724 flights
These figures cover 2,417 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 JFK to SAN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. JetBlue Airways arrives on time 83.2% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 75.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,046 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 724 | 83.2% | 60 min | 3.59% | B− |
| Alaska Airlines | 647 | 76.4% | 69 min | 1.55% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,046 | 75.5% | 54 min | 3.15% | B− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.6% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on JFK 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 New York to San Diego
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. JFK → SANNew York to San Diego | JetBlue Airways | 80.2% | 83.2% | 3.59% | 8am–11am, Fri | B6 1189 16:30 |
| 2. EWR → SANNewark to San Diego | United Airlines | 78.5% | 80.1% | 1.95% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 1826 06:35 |
| 3. JFK → SANNew York to San Diego | Alaska Airlines | 75.2% | 76.4% | 1.55% | 11am–2pm, Wed | AS 25 16:57 |
| 4. JFK → SANNew York to San Diego | Delta Air Lines | 73.1% | 75.5% | 3.15% | 8am–11am, Tue | DL 683 08:45 |
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 15 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am209 flights86.3%
- 8am–11am656 flights80.1%
- 11am–2pm166 flights80.9%
- 2pm–5pm631 flights78.3%
- 5pm–8pm441 flights74.0%
- 8pm–5am314 flights71.6%
Scale runs 65% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.3% of the time, against 71.6% for the overnight window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 656 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK 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 JFK to SAN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 71.6%, a wide gap of 14.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.3%
- 8–11am80.1%
- 11am–2pm80.9%
- 2–5pm78.3%
- 5–8pm74.0%
- 8pm–5am71.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 70.0% on time, 17 points below March, the best at 86.8%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 215 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.4%, 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 31,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%National Airspace System
- 30%Carrier
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% 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 13,000 minutes out of 31,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 30,548 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.85%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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 actually costs
6.5% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,446 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 2,417 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 2,417 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 delay figures matter less here than the 2.85% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,331 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to SAN questions
How often is JFK to SAN delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.0% of the 2,417 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to SAN?
JetBlue Airways leads at 83.2% on time across 724 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 75.5%, a gap of 8 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 JFK to SAN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 71.6%, 15 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 JFK to SAN?
August is the weakest month at 70.0% on time, compared with 86.8% in March. Across the year that is 17 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 JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to SAN83.2%
- Alaska Airlines on JFK to SAN76.4%
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to SAN75.5%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- SFO to SAN, a related route62.2%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record83.2%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record76.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record75.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. JFK to SAN and SAN to JFK 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.