Route reliability record
SAN→EWR
San Diego to Newark
- Flights
- 1,557
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,425 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,557 SAN to EWR flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly SAN to EWR: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.9%, against 81.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 46 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,501 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.25%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
81.3% on time across 1,229 flights
These figures cover 1,557 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SAN to EWR
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 328 | 84.0% | 79 min | 2.74% | B |
| United Airlines | 1,229 | 81.3% | 92 min | 2.12% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on SAN to EWR
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 Newark
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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SAN → JFKSan Diego to New York | Alaska Airlines | 82.0% | 83.4% | 1.70% | 5am–8am, Tue | AS 24 07:00 |
| 2. SAN → JFKSan Diego to New York | Delta Air Lines | 80.0% | 82.8% | 3.35% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 367 07:00 |
| 3. SAN → EWRSan Diego to Newark | United Airlines | 79.6% | 81.3% | 2.12% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1827 22:20 |
| 4. SAN → JFKSan Diego to New York | JetBlue Airways | 78.0% | 81.7% | 4.56% | 8am–11am, Fri | B6 1190 20:30 |
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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am364 flights86.7%
- 8am–11am328 flights84.0%
- 11am–2pm157 flights64.2%
- 2pm–5pm204 flights73.1%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am504 flights86.1%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 64.2% on time against 86.7% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 504 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SAN to EWR 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 EWR, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.7% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 64.2%, a wide gap of 22.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.7%
- 8–11am84.0%
- 11am–2pm64.2%
- 2–5pm73.1%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am86.1%
best all US flightsScale 55% 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.
July is the worst month at 70.8% on time, 23 points below April, the best at 94.1%. 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 153 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.1%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 24,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Extreme weather
- 17%Carrier
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 20% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 24,373 reported delay minutes.
40% 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 9,742 minutes out of 24,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 2.25% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.35%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.3% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,425 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 runs 79.4% on time across 1,557 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 1,557 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 EWR 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 94.1% on time and July 70.8%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,501 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAN to EWR questions
How often is SAN to EWR delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.1% of the 1,557 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is SAN to EWR compared with the rest of the country?
81.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SAN to EWR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.7% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 64.2%, 23 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 July delays on SAN to EWR?
July is the weakest month at 70.8% on time, compared with 94.1% 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
- EWR to SAN — the return legseparate record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on SAN to EWR84.0%
- United Airlines on SAN to EWR81.3%
- SAN to SFO, a related route59.5%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- SAN to DEN, a related route78.4%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record84.0%
- United Airlines on-time record81.3%
- 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 EWR and EWR 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.