Route reliability record
SAN→AUS
San Diego to Austin
- Flights
- 2,617
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,164 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 2,617 SAN to AUS flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,070 at 78.0% on time.
Best time to fly SAN to AUS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.9%, against 70.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 72 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,586 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.99%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
78.0% on time across 1,070 flights
These figures cover 2,617 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SAN to AUS
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 78.0% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 64.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,457 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,070 | 78.0% | 59 min | 1.50% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 90 | 64.8% | 50 min | 2.22% | D |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,457 | 64.6% | 51 min | 0.55% | D+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on SAN to AUS
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 San Diego to Austin
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SAN → AUSSan Diego to Austin | SkyWest Airlines | 76.8% | 78.0% | 1.50% | 5am–8am, Wed | OO 3292 17:48 |
| 2. SAN → AUSSan Diego to Austin | Southwest Airlines | 64.2% | 64.6% | 0.55% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 58 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am395 flights88.7%
- 8am–11am668 flights78.9%
- 11am–2pm172 flights63.9%
- 2pm–5pm604 flights55.4%
- 5pm–8pm719 flights68.6%
- 8pm–5am59 flights31.0%
Scale runs 25% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 31.0% on time, against 88.7% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 719 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SAN to AUS 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 AUS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 31.0%, a wide gap of 57.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.7%
- 8–11am78.9%
- 11am–2pm63.9%
- 2–5pm55.4%
- 5–8pm68.6%
- 8pm–5am31.0%
best all US flightsScale 25% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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 56.1% on time, 31 points below January, the best at 87.3%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 254 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 62.3%, a spread of 19 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 41,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 41,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 35 to one. The split is drawn from 41,438 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 88.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.99% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.9% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,164 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 72.9% on time across 2,605 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,617 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 AUS 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. January runs 87.3% on time and August 56.1%, a swing of 31 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,586 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAN to AUS questions
How often is SAN to AUS delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.9% of the 2,617 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SAN to AUS?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 78.0% on time across 1,070 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 64.6%, a gap of 13 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 SAN to AUS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 31.0%, 58 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 SAN to AUS?
August is the weakest month at 56.1% on time, compared with 87.3% in January. Across the year that is 31 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
- AUS to SAN — the return legseparate record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on SAN to AUS78.0%
- Southwest Airlines on SAN to AUS64.6%
- SAN to SFO, a related route59.5%
- DEN to AUS, a related route76.2%
- SAN to DEN, a related route78.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record78.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record64.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record64.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. SAN to AUS and AUS to SAN 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.