Carrier route record
ASJFK→SAN
Alaska Airlines · New York to San Diego
- Flights
- 647
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 27%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on JFK to SAN lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 647 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, JetBlue Airways, flew 724 at 83.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Alaska on JFK to SAN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 636 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.55%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.0%
Every carrier on JFK to SAN, 2,417 flights
These figures cover 647 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Alaska against every carrier on JFK to SAN
Alaska flew 647 of the 2,417 flights on JFK to SAN, about 27% of it. Its 76.4% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 83.2% to Delta at 75.5%.
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 (this page) | 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
Alaska flight numbers on JFK to SAN
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 Alaska runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 647 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am183 flights75.8%
- 11am–2pm118 flights79.5%
- 2pm–5pm276 flights75.8%
- 5pm–8pm70 flights75.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 11am–2pm window is the strongest at 79.5% on time. The full set of windows spans 5 points.
Across the year
Alaska on JFK to SAN through the year
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 56.5%. March is the strongest month at 94.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 38 points. July was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.7%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Alaska on JFK to SAN runs when it is late
Alaska on JFK to SAN often beats the schedule: 220 of 636 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 150 late arrivals split 61 under half an hour, 48 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 41 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early220 flights34.6%
- Within 15 min266 flights41.8%
- 15–29 min late61 flights9.6%
- 30–59 min late48 flights7.5%
- 1–2 hours late21 flights3.3%
- 2+ hours late20 flights3.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 636 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 126 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 45 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 69 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 Alaska on JFK to SAN
The latest arrival of the period was on 4 December 2025, 10 hours 53 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in July 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 4 December 2025 | 10 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 August 2026 | 7 hours 34 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 21 July 2026 | 7 hours 5 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 18 July 2026 | 6 hours 45 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 21 July 2026 | 6 hours 29 minutes | Extreme weather |
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.
- 35%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 18% 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 3.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 10,270 reported delay minutes.
35% 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 3,562 minutes out of 10,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.55% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.4% 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 a little over 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 83.4% on time across 647 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 647 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 JFK to SAN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 647 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 76.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 636 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- JFK to SAN, every carrier
- Alaska on SAN to JFK, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to SAN83.2%
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to SAN75.5%
- Alaska Airlines network-wide record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
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.