Carrier route record

ASSAN→ATL

Alaska Airlines · San Diego to Atlanta

Flights: 241
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 10%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.

Alaska on SAN to ATL sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 241 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Alaska on SAN to ATL runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 47 extra late arrivals.

On time

72.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 240 completed flights

Avg delay

54 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.41%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

85.5%

Every carrier on SAN to ATL, 2,412 flights

These figures cover 241 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.

Carrier by carrier

Alaska against every carrier on SAN to ATL

Alaska flew 241 of the 2,412 flights on SAN to ATL, about 10% of it. Its 72.9% on time is 13 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 85.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 86.9% to Alaska 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.

On-time performance by carrier on SAN to ATL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	2,171	86.9%	69 min	0.74%	A+
Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample	241	72.9%	54 min	0.41%	C+

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 241 flights.

There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Alaska's SAN to ATL record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 72.9% is the reliable figure here.

Across the year

Alaska on SAN to ATL through the year

Jul–Sep 202591 flights63.3%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights73.6%
Jan–Mar 202659 flights86.4%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 72.9% on time across 241 flights.

Alaska on SAN to ATL did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 86.4% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 63.3%, a swing of 23 points on roughly 80 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.1%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 43% of the 3,482 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

National Airspace System
43%
Late-arriving aircraft
33%
Carrier
20%
Extreme weather
4%
Security
0%

43% 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 1,483 minutes out of 3,482, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 3,482 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.41%, below the national 1.81% 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

7.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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 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 82.0% on time across 241 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 241 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 SAN to ATL

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 241 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. 240 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures