Route reliability record
SAN→DAL
San Diego to Dallas
- Flights
- 1,569
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,182 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,569 SAN to DAL flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
Best time to fly SAN to DAL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.7% of the time and Saturday flights 81.5%, against 69.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 86 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,527 completed flights
Avg delay
48 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.85%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
69.0% on time across 1,569 flights
These figures cover 1,569 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
Which airline is most reliable on SAN to DAL
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,569 | 69.0% | 48 min | 1.85% | C |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly San Diego to Dallas
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SAN → DFWSan Diego to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 74.8% | 77.2% | 3.08% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2535 06:15 |
| 2. SAN → DALSan Diego to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 67.7% | 69.0% | 1.85% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 39 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–8am359 flights91.7%
- 8am–11am308 flights78.1%
- 11am–2pm148 flights73.2%
- 2pm–5pm374 flights52.5%
- 5pm–8pm380 flights55.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.7% of the time, against 52.5% for the afternoon window. That is 39 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 380 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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.
June is the worst month at 57.5% on time, 26 points below September, the best at 83.2%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 141 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.5%. 20 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 23,000 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.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 27 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 22,523 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 91.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.83%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.9% 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 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,182 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.6% on time across 1,575 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,569 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 DAL 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. September runs 83.2% on time and June 57.5%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,527 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAN to DAL questions
How often is SAN to DAL delayed?
About 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 31.0% of the 1,569 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is SAN to DAL compared with the rest of the country?
69.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 9 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SAN to DAL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 52.5%, 39 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 June delays on SAN to DAL?
June is the weakest month at 57.5% on time, compared with 83.2% in September. Across the year that is 26 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
- DAL to SAN — the return legseparate record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Dallas Love Field (DAL) delay statistics
- SAN to SFO, a related route65.0%
- HOU to DAL, a related route80.9%
- SAN to DEN, a related route79.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record69.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. SAN to DAL and DAL 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.