Carrier route record

ASSAN→EWR

Alaska Airlines · San Diego to Newark

Flights: 328
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 21%
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 EWR lands a B−, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 328 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Alaska's SAN to EWR record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 50 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 311 completed flights

Avg delay

85 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.66%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

82.9%

Every carrier on SAN to EWR, 1,561 flights

These figures cover 328 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 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

Alaska against every carrier on SAN to EWR

Alaska flew 328 of the 1,561 flights on SAN to EWR, about 21% of it. Its 82.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 82.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 82.9% to Alaska at 82.6%.

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 EWR
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	1,233	82.9%	82 min	1.87%	B
Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample	328	82.6%	85 min	3.66%	B−

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 328 flights.

There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Alaska's SAN to EWR record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 82.6% is the reliable figure here.

Across the year

Alaska on SAN to EWR through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights75.6%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights83.0%
Jan–Mar 202654 flights84.6%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights87.6%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. 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 82.6% on time across 328 flights.

Alaska on SAN to EWR did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 87.6% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 75.6%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 82 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, Friday is the strongest day at 88.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.2%. 16 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 63% of the 4,614 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
63%
Late-arriving aircraft
16%
Carrier
10%
Extreme weather
9%
Security
2%

63% 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 2,908 minutes out of 4,614, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 4,614 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations run at 3.66%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 25 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.4% 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 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.6% on time across 328 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 328 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 EWR

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.66% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 311 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