Carrier route record
DLSAN→ATL
Delta Air Lines · San Diego to Atlanta
- Flights
- 2,171
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 90%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on SAN to ATL 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 9 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 2,171 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Delta's SAN to ATL record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 93 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,145 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.74%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
85.5%
Every carrier on SAN to ATL, 2,412 flights
These figures cover 2,171 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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.
Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on SAN to ATL
Delta flew 2,171 of the 2,412 flights on SAN to ATL, most of the route. Its 86.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 85.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 86.9% to Alaska at 72.9%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 2,171 | 86.9% | 69 min | 0.74% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 241 | 72.9% | 54 min | 0.41% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on SAN to ATL
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 11 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am366 flights93.0%
- 8am–11am422 flights85.3%
- 11am–2pm535 flights85.1%
- 2pm–5pm351 flights82.2%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am497 flights89.0%
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.0% of the time, against 82.2% for the afternoon window. That is 11 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 535 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on SAN to ATL through the year
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 202 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 84.9%. 4 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 46% of the 19,000 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.
- 46%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 8,824 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 19,335 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.0% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.74%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.4% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 78.4% on time across 2,172 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,171 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on SAN to ATL
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 96.0% on time and March 71.8%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 2,145 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SAN to ATL, every carrier
- Delta on ATL to SAN, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on SAN to ATL72.9%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.