Route reliability record
SAN→ATL
San Diego to Atlanta
- Flights
- 2,352
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,892 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 2,352 SAN to ATL flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly SAN to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 90.8%, against 85.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 84 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,333 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.64%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
86.1% on time across 2,172 flights
These figures cover 2,352 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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
Which airline is most reliable on SAN to ATL
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,172 | 86.1% | 76 min | 0.69% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 180 | 81.7% | 53 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on SAN to ATL
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.
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
The best time of day to leave
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 2,352 flights.
- 5am–8am367 flights90.9%
- 8am–11am462 flights84.0%
- 11am–2pm674 flights84.5%
- 2pm–5pm349 flights82.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am500 flights87.5%
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.9% of the time, against 82.4% for the afternoon window. That is 9 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 674 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SAN to ATL 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 SAN to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 82.4%, a real gap of 8.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.9%
- 8–11am84.0%
- 11am–2pm84.5%
- 2–5pm82.4%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am87.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
April is the best month on the calendar at 96.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 233 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 82.4%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 45% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 24,626 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.64%, 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 actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 1,892 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 78.2% on time across 2,353 flights, 8 points below 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,352 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 ATL 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. April runs 96.0% on time and March 72.8%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 2,333 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAN to ATL questions
How often is SAN to ATL delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.3% of the 2,352 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is SAN to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
85.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 8 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SAN to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 82.4%, 9 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 March delays on SAN to ATL?
March is the weakest month at 72.8% on time, compared with 96.0% in April. Across the year that is 23 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
- ATL to SAN — the return legseparate record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on SAN to ATL86.1%
- Alaska Airlines on SAN to ATL81.7%
- SAN to SFO, a related route59.5%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- SAN to DEN, a related route78.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.1%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record81.7%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. SAN to ATL and ATL to SAN are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed SAN to ATL’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.