Carrier route record

ASSAN→EWR

Alaska Airlines · San Diego to Newark

Flights: 328
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 21%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.

Alaska on SAN to EWR earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 328 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Alaska's SAN to EWR record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 67 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

84.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 312 completed flights

Avg delay

79 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.74%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

81.9%

Every carrier on SAN to EWR, 1,557 flights

These figures cover 328 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 13 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

Alaska against every carrier on SAN to EWR

Alaska flew 328 of the 1,557 flights on SAN to EWR, about 21% of it. Its 84.0% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 81.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 84.0% to United at 81.3%.

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
Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample	328	84.0%	79 min	2.74%	B
United Airlines	1,229	81.3%	92 min	2.12%	B

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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 84.0% is the reliable figure here.

Across the year

Alaska on SAN to EWR through the year

Jul–Sep 202530 flights—
Oct–Dec 202591 flights83.0%
Jan–Mar 202654 flights84.6%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights87.6%
Jul–Sep 202662 flights83.6%

Scale runs 75% 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 84.0% on time across 328 flights.

Quarter by quarter Alaska on SAN to EWR held fairly steady: 83.0% in Oct–Dec 2025, 84.6% in Jan–Mar 2026, 87.6% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 83.6% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 5 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 91.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.0%, a spread of 16 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late Alaska on SAN to EWR runs when it is late

Alaska on SAN to EWR often beats the schedule: 147 of 312 completed flights, 47%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 50 late arrivals split 18 under half an hour, 14 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 18 an hour or more.

15+ min early147 flights47.1%
Within 15 min115 flights36.9%
15–29 min late18 flights5.8%
30–59 min late14 flights4.5%
1–2 hours late11 flights3.5%
2+ hours late7 flights2.2%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 312 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

A late pushback is often recovered here: of 72 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 31 still arrived on time. 9 flights left on time and still arrived late.

The worst days

Worst days for Alaska on SAN to EWR

The latest arrival of the period was on 9 November 2025, 8 hours 19 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.

The latest arrivals of Alaska on SAN to EWR in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
9 November 2025	8 hours 19 minutes	National Airspace System
29 October 2025	6 hours 48 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
2 November 2025	4 hours 59 minutes	National Airspace System
14 December 2025	4 hours 59 minutes	National Airspace System
27 July 2026	4 hours 20 minutes	Extreme weather

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

National Airspace System accounts for 53% of the 3,942 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

National Airspace System
53%
Late-arriving aircraft
19%
Extreme weather
14%
Carrier
12%
Security
2%

Extreme weather accounts for 14% 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 2.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 3,942 reported delay minutes.

53% 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 2,104 minutes out of 3,942, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations run at 2.74%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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

5.8% 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 a little over an hour, 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 77.0% on time across 328 flights, 7 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 7 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: treat all of this as provisional. 328 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 84.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 312 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures